Ellen Scantlebury has extended her Loughborough Lightning contract after a breakthrough first season at the Club. The Somerset-born winger started life at Loughborough in the University’s BUCS Second XV before progressing into the first team. Scantlebury’s journey along the pathway saw her make a try-scoring Lightning debut against Gloucester-Hartpury in September 2023’s Allianz Cup game
Loughborough Lightning have completed the signing of soon-to-be Olympian Krissy Scurfield for the 2024/25 season. The speedy 21-year-old has been selected in Canada’s Olympics Rugby Sevens squad which will be competing for medals at Stade de France in the host city of Paris on 28/29/30 July. Canada finished fifth in the HSBC SVNS 2023/24 Series
Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) have announced a new long-term partnership with Gilbert which will include supplying the League with their market-leading rugby balls. The new PWR Gilbert ball will be seen for the first time in the PWR Up Series in September and will be used throughout the Premiership Women’s Rugby campaign which culminates in
Loughborough Lightning have appointed Charlie Beckett to its coaching team ahead of the 2024/25 season. The 28-year-old recently called time on a playing career that saw him make 187 senior professional appearances for Leicester Tigers, Gloucester Rugby, Jersey Reds, Ampthill Rugby Club, Eastwood Rugby Club (Sydney), Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights. Beckett will take up
PWR has now confirmed the details of the revised opening stages of the 2024-25 season. It’s a great pity that the smooth running of the league has had to be interrupted once more. In one instance it was beyond the authorities’ control – the pandemic. In others it’s been because of the self-imposed three-year cycle;
FIXTURES FOR the innovative PWR Up Series have been confirmed ahead of its debut this September. Three weekends of fixtures will act as a warm-up for all nine Premiership Women’s Rugby clubs before their launch into league action on Saturday 5 October. Clubs have been grouped into regional pools of three and will play one
Harlequins have today confirmed a change to the women’s coaching team for the 2024/25 season. The change has been confirmed following a review of the 2023/24 season and the Club’s ongoing vision to build one of the strongest women’s programmes in the Northern Hemisphere. Amy Turner has moved from Head Coach on the Women’s programme
As we approach mid-July, clubs are announcing large numbers of signings. You may be aware of my underlying hope – that the weaker clubs should be strengthened. But that means the stronger clubs must be weakened, and won’t happen, no matter which government is in power. With only nine clubs involved again, each weekend is
Now that the final is done and dusted, we can take a look at the remaining four clubs I omitted from Part One Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but there can have been few doubts about the likely play-off clubs. Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs, Gloucester-Hartpury and Saracens had such depths of talent that the whole
The first season of the PWR finished barely a week ago. Already, managements of the nine clubs will be deciding the most sensible steps forward. These traditionally mean signings first and foremost. We have seen relatively few thus far, but the trends are disturbing. Let me assemble the names I’ve spotted up to now (21
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