As women’s leagues go on developing, can we see a consistent trend?
A glance at some leading European leagues – the English PWR, the French Elite 1, the Italian Serie A Elite, the Irish AIL, the Spanish Liga Iberdrola, the Scottish Arnold Clark Premiership – the same pattern recurs: a few clubs dominate the scene. The more professional they become, the greater the focus on fewer more successful clubs.
At the start of 2025 they are (in alphabetical order):
England: Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs, Gloucester-Hartpury, Harlequins, Saracens
France: ASM Romagnat, Blagnac, Stade Bordelais, Stade Toulousain
Italy: Colorno, Valsugana, Villorba
Ireland: Blackrock, Railway Union, UL Bohemian,
Scotland: Corstophine Cougars, Hillhead Jordanhill, Stirling County
Spain: Colina Clinic El Salvador, Majadahonda
Positive deductions: the stronger the top teams are, the better the national side will perform; the more cohesive will be their performance.
On the debit side: the stronger these clubs become, the harsher the effect on all the others; scores become alarmingly wide; the weaker clubs lose players, even close their doors; the effect is to limit the interest in rugby to a few geographical areas; it fails to develop as a sport of national focus.
A Case in Point: Ireland
It’s pleasing to see a national side making a real advance; it can happen rapidly. We need look no further than Ireland’s recovery over the past two years.
Then comes a worrying discussion in the Counter Ruck podcast. It involves two highly experienced figures in the Irish firmament, Fiona Reidy, DoR at UL Bohemian, and John Cronin, former DoR of Railway Union. With their intimate knowledge of the state of the game, they pick out the good and the bad in the present situation.
Though the national squad is riding high, our experts can see all manner of weaknesses in the sub-structures. A few of them:
An imbalance of population: 33 of the two Celtic Challenge squads live in the Dublin area, five in Limerick; those cities are the only two in the republic where rugby has a major presence. Neither of the two Ulster clubs in the AIL is thriving, players tending to drift to Dublin, like so many others from further south. Cronin admits his club is lucky in that respect. Reidy points to the benefit the University of Limerick gives her club.
In too many of the AIL clubs there is a lack of quality coaching, due partly to extreme lack of funding. The result is huge margins of victory, totals of over 100 all too frequent. Clubs have folded as a result.
The age of 20 is a crucial turning-point for players deciding their future. At present young women are unlikely to remain in the game, as they weigh up career prospects.
Despite the presence of so many levels of competition – from the AIL through the Celtic Challenge to the 6 Nations and beyond – there is a dangerous lack of joined-up thinking. The IRFU has not ensured a logical pathway structure. And since rugby will claim only a small proportion of girls and young women for whom sport is important, the total number committing to the game will remain sparse.
And elsewhere
The difficulties pointed out by Reidy and Cronin are reflected in the other nations, with local variations. Neither Wales nor Scotland can claim that the sport is favoured everywhere. Move away from the populous regions of South Wales, and women’s rugby faces huge handicaps. For all the size of Scotland, the game has been largely reduced to the lowland belt. A generation ago the SRU set up four regions for the men’s game, the Borders, Glasgow, Edinburgh and the Highlands. Of those, the first and last have disappeared at representstive level for both men and women.
David Barnes in The Offside Line points out a seemingly ‘unbridgeable gap’ between the leading clubs of the Arnold Clark Premiership and the rest, a familiar tale.
Each example helps explain why so many players seek to move to England. But even there they cannot be sure of earning enough to secure their future beyond their playing days. That leads us straight back to professionalism, which is beyond the scope of this piece.
Let’s ask a different question: will the PWR ever be able to increase its membership? When Celtic voices said they wanted to see Welsh and/or Scottish clubs joining the Premier 15s/PWR, my instant reaction was: instead of whom?
The picture now is quite different. Ten clubs have become nine, with no sign of a replacement for Worcester Warriors. Other clubs who have been ousted continue to perform on an amateur basis, but with precious little hope of regaining their place. I still don’t see how a Welsh club could suddenly come into being to hold its own in the PWR, unless as a sort of franchise, close to being the national side – an unwise solution.
The Latin Question
While Italy and Spain continue the good fight for rugby to find more widespread acceptance, both have known clubs folding through lack of support and success. The Italians have the inbuilt advantage of 6N membership; Spain have a counter-advantage, that their eight elite clubs are spread over much of the country; only the south-east is not represented.
There are four Azzurre now attached to PWR clubs. From Spain, Carmen Castelucci plays for Gloucester-Hartpury, and Clàudia Peña Hidalgo joined Harlequins this season.
But in both nations, two or three clubs hold sway, the old story.
Unpleasant conclusions
If we work on the principle that the best structures have a firm, broad base, then the present situation is not ideal. In most of the leagues mentioned, promotion and relegation are in place. In the PWR, the foremost of the six, it is not, and won’t be for the foreseeable future. What are the chances that it will become progressively smaller?
Fortunately for fans in England it’s now a five-horse race for four PWR positions, so they aren’t just waiting for an inevitable final between two favourites. But what is the future for Sale Sharks? Will they be able to lure more quality players to the club and gain some victories? History warns us that failure to score points means ejection. Will the PWR board be happy with eight clubs?
A worrying thought.
