Bringing the Craic to the Allianz Premier 15s
With the delayed 2021 World Cup imminent and the new Allianz Premier 15s season on the horizon, interest in women’s rugby has never been higher. This will be the last season of the current iteration of England’s top women’s league and there are a host of parties interested in joining it in 2023/2024.
Leicester Tigers, Bath and Ealing Trailfinders have all been vocal with their intent but in West London another team is busy building their own bid for a place at the table.
London Irish announced their intent to join the Premier 15s a little over a year ago, with Graham Smith, the World Cup winning forwards coach for the Red Roses, announced as a key member of the team to deliver elite women’s rugby to the club.
Smith set about delivering camps and building on the player base within London Irish amateurs and their promotion winning Emeralds who secured a place in Championship 1 South for the upcoming season.
It was a canny move that resulted in an impressive side who won the Championship 2 South West at a canter, taking wins in all 16 fixtures and confirming the set up as a key piece in the player pathway, which can only go for them in their Premier 15s bid.
The Exiles today released a press release announcing their impressive women’s coaching line up and wider ambitions as a club.
Former England 7s captain and England 15s player Abi Chamberlain is already part of the amateur coaching team and will carry that role over to the elite set up where she will be joined by former Black Fern Lydia Kerr who moved to the UK as head coach at Durham University before a playing spell with Wasps Women.
They’ll be joined by Karen Findlay, the 85 cap Scotland international who was so integral to Harlequins Women becoming one of the dominant forces in the Allianz Premier 15s. When she’s not marshalling the Metropolitan Police at major events in her role as Commander, she’s been found on many a touchline as an impressive coach at Quins and before that Richmond.
Chamberlain is excited to see what the club can do, harnessing the amazing performances that have seen them achieve successive promotions for the last four seasons. “We’re a club with big dreams, talent, and the passion to create a positive pathway for women playing the sport we love. The chance to evolve that opportunity into the Premier 15s competition is a natural and exciting next step for us. I can’t wait for the season ahead!”
Huge congrats to @LIEmeraldsRFC for this well deserved recognition.
What a team!! https://t.co/LwCdUJK6hW
— Matt Merritt (he/him) (@MattMerritt) May 3, 2022
Director of Women’s Rugby Mary Fyfe spoke of the vision and ethos which the club lives by: “London Irish is more than rugby. We’re a professional and amateur club, working to create a ‘no barriers’ opportunity for women and girls to play rugby, at every level. We are proud to be working collaboratively together and with key partners for the good of women’s rugby and women’s sport more broadly.
“We’ve taken our time to grow our pathways and potential to add the next tier of women’s rugby to the club. We’ve spent the last seven years steadily growing our community game to achieve a Championship 1 place and feel the next obvious and progressive step for the club is to introduce a Premier 15s tier.”
As various clubs state their intent to join the league, the necessity to build a competitive team is of high priority.
Talent identification has been key to Smith’s work since joining the club and over the past year he has attempted to find players who may have slipped through the net of existing teams or have transferable skillsets from other sports.
At one of London Irish’s talent acquisition days, a Gaelic football and boxing coach were brought in to look at players in order to get a perspective outside of rugby.
“It’s a well-worn phrase, but I think you have to think outside the box with what we look for and how we assess players,” Smith explained, diving into his process for assessing talent. “I think a lot of the time rugby coaches focus on what players do on the ball, but the coach with a Gaelic football background was really focused on what they do off the ball. Another coach within boxing gave us a really clear indication of which players had mobility, good footwork and strong evasion tactics as well as balance and body management skills.
“It gave us a different set of views. There are some good young players there, I’m not saying they’ll play in the Premier 15s in two seasons time, but I think one or two are future internationals that have been missed. Our job now is to maximise their potential!”
It’s a technique that has paid off with a player base including Mexico 7s international Jenn Salomon as well as players such as Amy Montague and Hayley Sasserath who have spent time with Harlequins Women and former Premier 15s team Firwood Waterloo respectively.
That base grows wider as London Irish women deliver the women’s rugby programme at St Mary’s University (where players like Harlequins Izzy Mayhew developed their rugby) and are adding to that by working with Winchester College, the historic education centre, forming a south coast hub for training and recruitment.
They also hope to tap into the black, Asian and minority ethnic community in West London through a partnership with Hayes & Yeading Football Club.
Another great day yesterday, the girls particularly in the 1st half were excellent. @Georgiegulliver and her team from Ivybridge presented a great challenge. Thanks to everyone for the support. 16 wins, best attack, best defence, average score 29-9. I am happy with that. pic.twitter.com/Mr2RcV81ud
— Graham Smith (@grahamsmith36) April 10, 2022
There’s a long history of player development at London Irish, with England men’s teams littered with talent that was nurtured at the club’s Hazelwood training centre. Sunbury hasn’t just been home to great male talent though, as RugbyPass recently discovered.
“I was at London Irish when I was ten!” Red Roses prop Sarah Bern told us during a recent event at Pennyhill Park. “I was there with Alex Matthews; it was a really cool team at the time with lots of good players.”
When asked about the possibility of her old team being future opponents in the Premier 15s, she said: “That’s exciting for me. It’s where I started my journey and I think if they put in a good bid, it could be really exciting!”
Ultimately though, their bid will come down to how they stack up to the local opposition. “[If Irish are added to the Premier 15s] there will be more equally supported, similarly placed, clubs fishing in the same pond,” said Fyfe when discussing that Ealing have also signalled their intent to be involved in the Premier 15s.
“The question for a player then becomes ‘which team do I want to play for?’ and it won’t always be Quins. Especially if the other teams can show they are competing at the top end of the table. It can’t be the Quins and Saracens show every year.”
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
2 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments