Jo Yapp on making history as Lions coach: 'Congratulations from my role models was really special'

The phone signal where Jo Yapp lives is not great. Which meant that it took three attempts her to finally get on the line to the British & Irish bosses and find out that she was about to become the first Women’s Lions coach in history.

Her two children by that point had realised what was happening, stood there listening through the door as Yapp processed the news.

“I was overwhelmed, but they were all at the door, listening to see how I was going to be when I came out. It was just amazing actually to be able to be at home and to share that with them immediately. They were so excited.”

Despite the lack of bars Yapp’s phone has exceptionally busy ever since, receiving a deluge of well-wishes from not only players she has coached in the past but also her idols.

“To have people that were my kind of role models growing up in the women’s game, people like Gill Burns and Donna Kennedy and Liza Burgess, people that I looked up to, to have them reach out and congratulate me was really special.”

In her interviews for the role – the first a presentation to a room of six people, the second in front of a smaller group – Yapp set out her stall, a journey that has taken her from Worcester to the Wallaroos.

“From a high-performance perspective, I’ve been in women’s rugby for 30 years now. It’s been my whole life, so either as a player and then into coaching, so it was kind of that journey and kind of how passionate I was about the game and my understanding of the game. And then there was a part around like what would I do to unite a squad and some of my ideas around that as well, how I would map that out.”

The assumption, given England’s dominance since John Mitchell took charge, was that the Lions job was Mitchell’s to lose. Ultimately Yapp, revered for her ability to connect and improve players, was chosen instead. The two work closely together within the English setup, with Yapp returning from Australia to become Head of Women’s Pathway at the Rugby Football Union earlier this year.

“Ultimately we have a strong relationship,” Yapp said of Mitchell. “It’s exciting to be working alongside someone like that with so much experience.”

Nor will her Test side be exclusively made up of English players, recognising the talent across each country.

Once Yapp was part of the interview process, naturally she began mapping out potential squads and lists of players who could be involved – “You just can’t help yourself, can you, in terms of starting to kind of make notes and look how people are doing, look who’s on form” – while keeping an open mind for any potential ‘bolters’ who may be returning to action next year following injury or pregnancy.

She has also been in touch with Andy Farrell, the Ireland head coach who took the men’s Lions to the Australia last year winning their series 2-1, for any on how to approach the tour.

“He was super open personally, which was which was really lovely. But I think one of the things he talked about in terms of making sure when you’re pulling together your staff team, that you get the right people there – people that you can trust, that you can work with. And I think that’s massively important for me when I’m considering pulling people together.”

Players and supporters alike have noted that the announcement of a head coach has made the process feel considerably more real. For Carol Isherwood, chair of the Lions Women’s Committee, the fact that Yapp will be going up a Black Ferns side also coached by a woman, in new coach Whitney Hansen, is a major moment for the sport.

“New Zealand has got a new head coach, Whitney Hansen, who’s outstanding,” said Isherwood. “I worked with her over the last few years as well. So I think it’s fantastic we’ve got two women head coaches going head-to-head in a series, which I think will be phenomenal for the game.”

And while the Lions first tour may be to traditional territory in New Zealand, that does not mean that the women’s Lions are beholden to following the same tour pattern, or traditions, as the men’s tours.

“We want the players to have the opportunity to shape what the tour looks like and we’ve had a number of what we call ‘engagement days’,” said Ben Calveley, the Lions CEO. “So we’ve had two of them so far and there are more planned, which is where we bring together 10 players from each of the four countries.

“We know there are loads of people who have supported the Lions’ men’s team historically, and obviously we hope that all of them will support the Lions’ women’s team as well. But we’ve always had this view that there must be a whole bunch of new fans out there that haven’t engaged with us historically that will now want to do that because we have a Lion’s women’s team. And if you just look at social content, for example, the numbers of people engaging are incredible and over 65 per cent of them are people that haven’t engaged with the Lions in the past at all in any shape or form. And there’s about a significant majority of them are within the 18-to-34 year old age category.

“We have a database that is a Lions women’s only database. We have one for the men as well, and you sign up to find out more information about the team and so forth. There are 100s of 1000s, literally 100s of 1000s of people who have already signed up for that database. And that’s a different group to those people that sign up to the men’s database. So we are seeing really encouraging signs that there’s a very different and additional set of fans that we can engage with.

“We are not in any way obligated, if that’s the word, to go to the same countries that the men have visited in the past. We’re not going to New Zealand because the Lions has toured there historically. We’re going to New Zealand because we believe it to be the right location for the inaugural tour. But in the future, you could see us going in completely new and different territories, which is really exciting.”

For now the objective is to capitalise on the momentum of Yapp’s appointment with driving tour packages and ticket sales. Yapp will be part-time with the Lions, given her RFU role, until January next year. From then on, the fun really starts.