How Charlie Beckett wants to add value to the game with the Women’s Rugby Roadmap

All of Charlie Beckett’s life has been surrounded by women’s rugby. As a mini and junior at Firwood Waterloo his Sunday morning matches were always the warmup act to the all-beating Ladies side.

His father, Mark, later coached Waterloo in Premier 15s (now Premiership Women’s Rugby) and his younger sister, Sarah, has won 35 caps for England’s Red Roses.

Over the course of his senior playing career, which concluded at Doncaster Knights in 2024, Charlie coached Cheltenham Tigers Women and helped turn the side into a Championship 1 powerhouse and met his partner, Sabine Trant, while coaching Tigers.

Now a full-time coach with Premiership Women’s Rugby outfit Sale Sharks, he hopes to give back to the game.

It was an idea that started over a coffee in the wake of England’s Women’s Rugby World Cup win. With the Red Roses’ success there will be an inevitable influx of female players making their way to community rugby clubs or all-new women’s sections.

“We (Charlie and Sabine) felt that an issue coming out of the World Cup would that women’s rugby would now be on the radar of so many new women and girls and there would be this keener microscope on the women’s rugby landscape,” Charlie told RugbyPass.

“In that, we thought that there was still a real gap in the fact that unless you are in a PWR or international setup – any elite environment – we didn’t feel like there was top level resources available for women’s rugby.

“You look at men’s rugby. Across the board men’s rugby probably has better resources and a lot of online resources are tailored for men’s and boy’s rugby. Some of that is transferrable to women’s rugby. A lot of it isn’t. Especially off-field resources.

“The landscape is shifting but we feel that this resource is needed to help rugby players of all levels – whether you are brand new to the game, playing in your university’s fourth team with a desire to get to the first team or playing in the Championship and want to get to PWR. We certainly think this can help anyone below PWR level.

“I started coaching at Cheltenham 10 years ago and we built something that is still successful to this day. There is a lot of community rugby clubs with women’s sections that are trying to bridge that gap. We want to help give these players what they don’t have.

“We want to make the women’s rugby landscape at every level under PWR a better place.

“We kind of just looked at each other and said, isn’t it a shame there isn’t any online resource that makes top level knowledge accessible. Then we said, well why don’t we try that?”

Just like that Women’s Rugby Roadmap was born.

For the past five months a whiteboard with all their ideas has become the centrepiece of their living room and items have been ticked off along the way.

Committing to a player focus, the key aspects of women’s rugby that Women’s Rugby Roadmap wants to focus on is providing gender and sport specific strength and conditioning, nutrition and women’s health advice.

 

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The reason for this is simple. That knowledge is like gold dust.

Ahead of UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 research from supermarket giant Lidl revealed that 80 per cent of sportswomen had never received specific guidance on how to fuel their body for exercise. Another 30 per cent admitted that they avoided sport altogether during their menstrual cycle.

There was even 67 per cent of women who exercised regularly that revealed they had never received guidance to support their training or recovery. Just 18 per cent received tailored nutritional advice.

So, how do you banish any myths, preconceptions and offer cold, hard facts? Charlie looked into his phonebook.

Sale Sharks nutritionist Beth Vickers has signed on to offer her expertise, as has women’s health specialist Abi Okell, while Loughborough Lightning S&C Emily Palmer will bring elite guidance from her field.

“We’re really honoured to have some really great practitioners, but more importantly, some really great people involved,” Charlie said. “We’re passionate about having people who are passionate about the same causes.

“Although rugby is the key bit, I think we’ll add the most value in those overlooked areas and the female specific knowledge from the top level.

We have got a female S&C coach who, for me, is working in the best women’s rugby league in the world and provides female specific S&C – I think that is enormously valuable.

“The fact that we have a women’s health physio, an expert, who works in women’s rugby providing women’s health specifically for women is huge as well.

“Nutrition as well. Nutrition is going to be massive. The fact that we can PWR level nutrition advice available is massive. It’s something that is a minefield online.

“Just the fact all of our advice is rugby specific, rugby tailored, top level, tried and tested, that is where we will provide the most value. I don’t think anyone else is doing that.”

To begin creating noise around Women’s Rugby Roadmap an Instagram account has been launched. On that account specialist knowledge will be offered to the world for free.

This will not only contain pointers on nutrition, S&C and women’s health, but also appearances from Charlie and Sale Sharks head coach, Tom Hudson, who have filmed a series of videos designed to help players develop their skills by themselves.

Sabine’s background in digital marketing has certainly come in handy and she is heading up the development of a website that will launch in February.

 

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Already the fledgling project that started over a flat white has almost become a full-time job. The interest has been palpable and the Global Rugby Players’ Foundation has already taken note. A string of partnerships are waiting to be announced in the coming weeks.

Current top level players Hallie Taufoou (Stade Bordelais and USA), Courtney Keight (Sale Sharks and Wales) and Deborah Wills (Saracens and England 7s bronze medallist) have all signed up as ambassadors too.

“We’re really pleased with the response we’ve had so far,” Charlie said. “It has probably grown faster than we thought it would. We’ve had amazing responses from people that want to help. I think that sums up women’s rugby – it is a brilliant community.

“How we want it to work is that the social media will exist to promote the website and the website is going to be the resource. All of our key pillars of rugby, S&C, injury management, mental well-being, women’s health and nutrition will be there for free.

“Top, top resources are going to be on that website for free, with Instagram funnelling people there. There will be a huge bank of 30 to 60 second video clips available on Instagram and on the website for free, then down the line there will be full courses as part of the membership model ranging from passing, tackle technique and catch-pass.

“We are really passionate that loads of these resources go out for free. This is filling the space with a valuable resource. This is a passion project, but also a business as well.

“Later down the line we will do a membership model where you can pay a monthly fee, probably the same price as Netflix, and there will be extra resources for that.

“But nothing will be taken away from the free stuff. That will always be free. And if someone only wanted to use the free website, we feel that it will genuinely help a female rugby player.”

The passion to grow women’s rugby at all levels is palpable. Charlie has been surrounded by it his whole life. Sabine only became entwined with the sport at the University of Exeter where she was coached to BUCS glory by Jo Yapp.

Both want to see women’s rugby thrive at every level imaginable. And they have set the wheels in motion to do just that.

“Women’s rugby has never been this taboo thing for me growing up, but as I got older I realised it wasn’t the norm,” Charlie said. “I have watched over the past 10 or 15 years as women’s rugby has become one of the hottest sports in the world right now.

“I was emotional at Twickenham as one of those 82,000 people because I remembered being at Goldington Road watching Sarah play for England in front of 5,000 people. It has given me so much joy and so many of the great things in my life.

“I’d love to hear that the Roadmap helped someone gain the confidence to play rugby. That it helped players of any level enjoy it more. If people enjoy rugby more because of what they’re learning or because of something we’ve provided, that’d be brilliant.

“I’d love to hear that a player achieved their goal. Whether that is going from the bench to being a starter or moving to their BUCS first team.

“Like, they had a goal that was the next stage of their journey and the resources they got through the Women’s Rugby Roadmap helped them achieve their goal. I’d love that.”