Womens' rugby Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

I agree with that. The worrying thing is that it’s not a great England side and than 3 or 4 decent teams.
it’s as you said - 4 bad teams including Ireland who will likely never beat England for the foreseeable future.
Thus making growing the 15 game impossible. Any good back player coming through will target the 7s

It’s all a bit of a joke ,really.

We have to pretend that there are good women’s rugby players in Ireland , there aren’t !

Then we have to pretend that the IRFU are at fault , they aren’t!

Next, we have to pretend that the public are interested in supporting this stuff, they aren’t!

Other than that everything is rosy in the garden.

The IRFU offered 37 professional contracts to Ireland Women's Sevens and 15s players, 29 of which were taken up. 

Exactly. If you think about it logically why would you give up the opportunity to build your career to play full time rugby in the womens game unless you were very well paid and their was a vibrant club game running in tandem with the international game.
Lots of the Irish girls have qualifications in very well paid sectors and we all want to make money and buy a house and build a future for ourselves.

maybe the home nations should invest in a joint club league and use that for the vehicle to push professionalism. Will have to be heavily subsidised but could be a game changer for the women’s game

Something like that Is The the way forward

If the Irish English Welsh and Scot’s could form a league where the clubs are all owned by the unions and the governments of each country will guarantee funding I believe the private sector would also get involved. We could have a premier women’s rugby league in these islands and the best players and coaches from around the world would come to work. I think there is a real opportunity for something big to be built just like womens soccer game is growing.

it just needs to be funded.

It might make sense to have 2 rounds, a gap week and 2 rounds. I’m thinking where there are 8 amateur teams and resources might be an issue.

But obviously wouldn’t cut matches to the detriment of the sport.

The point I was making was do a review of elite players and make a few teams based off that data, if no clubs have enough elite players then stick with provincial teams. The key idea was a small number of elite teams playing a full league of maybe 18-22 matches every season against the best players in Scotland and Wales.

Players could also sign for the English league but would be a loss to the domestic scene.

It would probably take a decade of annual elite league participation for the Irish players to get up to where the English players are already.

The big question is how to fund such a league, it would be like going back to the start of the Celtic league and building it up gradually.

Djougang has better feet and finds space better than the whole Irish back line. She’s one of our few really solid players.

Ireland are unlucky and could be ahead if they had a 10 and a hooker who play the basics. Jones makes too many mistakes at lineout for this level and worse she is some woman for the white line fever, some glory hunter.

O’Brien cannot pass or kick or even tackle properly.

Quicker both are replaced we might have a chance here.

Lineouts nowhere near straight