Prioritising professionalism: Why Premier 15s and unions are leading the way
Women’s rugby is one of the fastest growing sports on the planet, in the past few years it has built a significant foothold within the wider sport while also creating its own audience who didn’t see themselves reflected in the crowds at your typical club or international game.
That growth has led to repeated calls to professionalise the women’s game and over the past month we’ve seen the RFU announce a change to the Premier 15s as well as announcements from the Scottish and Welsh unions.
The Allianz Premier 15s announcement was perhaps the biggest bombshell of these, a ten-year strategy that will see the league form its own operating company, move towards professionalism and open up the prospect of growing beyond 10 teams.
There is no change for the forthcoming season, and while the play on the field will no doubt be even more exciting than we’ve come to expect, there will be a lot of attention to what goes on behind the scenes and each team’s movement up and down the table.
At the end of the 2022/23 season, we will likely see some new teams join and current top tier teams leave the league. With Leicester Tigers, London Irish and Bath among those applying to get in, there are far more teams than current space in the league.
DMP Durham Sharks are a likely bet to lose their place having finished last on the Premier 15s table in the last two seasons with only one win to their name with Sale Sharks also consistently dwelling at the bottom, but I can’t see a world where both northern teams are dropped so one of them may be safe, while the current exodus of players (and coaches) at Wasps begs the question of whether they will be in a position to maintain their spot given their loss of top talent to other clubs.
In likelihood though we probably will see one team go and one team join (and Wasps moving to Coventry to join their male counterparts). Thankfully the Premier 15s strategy caters for this, suggesting that aspiring teams who don’t get in will be given support to get to the point they can bid again as the league seeks to grow over the coming decade.
Projections suggest revenue over this period will skyrocket to potentially £174 million with the RFU and clubs kicking in a further £48 million to cover the projected running costs. These costs include salaries for players, increased support teams at each club, including coaches, strength and conditioning and medical and lifestyle support.
𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗲𝗿𝟭𝟱𝘀 𝟯.𝟬
BREAKING 🗞 The RFU has announced a 10-year strategy to professionalise the #Premier15s 📈
Read the full release here: https://t.co/rIqZnksJiX pic.twitter.com/Jq8wL9amF8
— Premiership Women's Rugby (@ThePWR) June 30, 2022
There is also a push to significantly increase the off-field investment, moving all games to stadiums instead of the current mix of Gallagher Premiership stadia, university pitches and even local club grounds. This is all with the aim of securing a free-to-air television deal, built around higher quality broadcasts.
If, like me, you tend to be a positive person then this probably sounds great and I agree that there’s a lot to be excited about here, but there are questions too…
Where does all the money come from? Most clubs aren’t exactly flush, so this is a further drain on the resources of the likes of Saracens and Sale. Wasps are already in the news for being late to pay back bonds their fans raised for their move to Coventry, as such there must be questions over the validity of moving their women’s set up into the midlands too, and whether they can afford to maintain and improve it.
Loughborough Lightning and Gloucester-Hartpury are both affiliated to universities who can’t really be expected to kick in further millions of pounds so their partner clubs (Gloucester and Northampton respectively) will inevitably become more involved and could erode the identity of the women’s teams somewhat.
We also need to question: when is the right time to expand the league? For anyone who follows Championship 1 (the highest tier of rugby below Premier 15s), you’ll be aware there is plenty of talent around the league that is capable of stepping up, indeed many players have played some Premier 15s and will play more in the future. Indeed, last season you had some great talent turning out in the league below.
Exeter Chiefs’ Charlie Willett played for Cullumpton RFC in Championship 2 south west, while the winners of that league – London Irish Emeralds – had former Wasp Georgia Wood as captain and Amy Montague, previously part of the Harlequins set up, join mid-season to bolster their scrum. So there’s plenty of players who have the potential to make the step up and given recent announcements and clubs stating their intentions to join the league, they may soon be needed.
In other news which bolsters the women’s game, the Welsh RFU announced on July 6th that they would add a further 17 full time contracts to their already contracted players, bringing them up to 32 full time players. This followed on from the Scottish RFU announcement in mid-June that they had offered 30 players contracts and would also be setting up two semi-pro teams.
📢 Huge boost for #WalesWomen ahead of @RugbyWorldCup
– 17 new full-time contracts bringing number of WRU contracted players to 31
– @IoanCunningham commits as head coach to 2025 Rugby World Cup
– New coaching and sports science staff added #HerStory
— Welsh Rugby Union 🏴 (@WelshRugbyUnion) July 6, 2022
There’s no news yet on where those teams will play or indeed who they will play against, but it does make us wonder, will these contracts, along with the inevitable Irish ones that follow – the IRFU are not in a rush as they didn’t qualify for the World Cup so expect them to announce in the autumn – lead to these unions wanting their players closer to home?
Scotland’s squad almost all play in the Premier 15s and Welsh players are key parts of the Bristol and Gloucester-Hartpury squads while Wasps have long had a pack built around Irish power (though a few of those players have moved on and we believe at least one more is set to announce they are leaving).
For me this seems an ideal time to consider some sort of Celtic League. If the three unions can agree on how to run it, there could be some superb match ups between Irish provinces, Scottish clubs and maybe Welsh regions? It also opens up a more realistic option for a European Cup in the future as currently Premier 15s clubs and French teams would undoubtedly dominate.
It’s probably fair to say that by the time this article is published we’ll see even more change coming… As I was writing this month’s column the announcement of a combined Team GB’ 7s squad came, another exciting bit of news that builds out the player pathways.
It’s hard to know what the women’s game will look like in 12 months, but I can’t help feeling that it’s only going to keep going from strength to strength if the Premier 15s and unions keep driving professionalism forwards and by the time World Cup 2025 takes place in England, I would expect the 82,000 seats of Twickenham to be sold out for the final!
Comments on RugbyPass
And the person responsible for creating a culture of accountability is?
2 Go to commentsMore useless words from Ben Smith -Please get another team to write about. SA really dont need your input, it suck anyway.
264 Go to commentsThis disgraceful episode must result in management and coach team sackings. A new manager with worse results than previous and the coaching staff need to coached. Awful massacre led by donkeys.
1 Go to commentsInteresting article with one glaring mistake. This sentence: “And between the top four nations right now, Ireland, France, South Africa, and New Zealand…” should read: And between the top four nations right now, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand and France…”. Get it right wistful thinkers, its not that hard.
23 Go to commentsHow did Penny get the gig anyway?
2 Go to commentsNice write up Nick and I would have agreed a week ago. However as you would know Cale & co got absolutely monstered by the Blues back row of Sotutu, Ioane and Papaliti and not all of these 3 are guaranteed a start in the Black jumper. He may need to put some kgs before stepping up, Spring tour? After the week end Joe will be a bit more restless. Will need to pick a mobile tough pack for Wales and hope England does the right thing and bashes the ABs. I like your last paragraph but I would bring Swinton, Hannigan into the 6 role and Bobby V to 8
21 Go to commentsThe Crusaders can still get in to the Play Off’s. The imminent return of outstanding captain Scott Barrett and his All Black team mate Codie Taylor will be a big boost.There are others like Tamaiti Williams too. Two home games coming up. Fellow Crusader fans get there and support these guys. I will be.
1 Go to commentsCant get more Wellington than Proctor.
2 Go to commentsWhy not let the media decide. Like how they choose the head coach. Like most of us we entrust the rugby system to choose. A rugby team includes the coaches. It's collective.
13 Go to commentsHi NIck, I have been very impressed with him and he seems a smart player who can see opportunities which Bobby V _(who must be an international 6_) doesn’t see or have the speed to take advantage of. If he continues to improve and puts on 5kgs then he could be a great 8. He is a bit taller than Keiran Reid at 1.93m and 111 kgs, so his skill set fits his body size and who knows where it will lead. I hope the spate of Achilles tendon issues have been dealt with by the S&C people. It’s been a very long time since Mark Loane and Kefu stood out at 8. The question is will we be able to hold onto him, if he does make it he will be pretty hot property. I disagree with the idea of letting them go to the Northern Hemisphere and then bring them back.
21 Go to commentsBilly Fulton 🤣🤣🤣🤣 garrrmon not even close
13 Go to commentsDoes the AI take into account refs? hahaha Seriously why not have two on field refs to avoid bias?
23 Go to commentsVern challenging this Blues side might be the edge they need to fulfill their potential. Convincing results from strong D and strong carries are hard to argue against.
1 Go to commentsLove seems to add a strong back field defense with speed to close the gap and tackle to his ability to attack, kick and pass (an accurate long pass). This sets him an edge over some of the other names - JRK in particular. Has to be said that Jordan and Stevenson have also been exposed defensively while Love has yet to face test match intensity. Spoilt for choice.
1 Go to commentsHe’s strung together a few strong seasons, I’d like to see him in the ABs and build some depth along with Reiko and ALB. Levi Aumua hasn’t taken the step we hoped to see but time yet.
2 Go to commentsWhere has our good friend Pecos gone!? Similar place to the Crusaders D, the abyss.
4 Go to commentsNice piece Nick. I haven’t seen much of the brumbies this year so will keep my powder dry on charlie, but clearly has the speed and footwork to be damaging in space. Similar to Samu, I’d worry about the size of our pack if the likes of Mcreight and Cale were in the b/row together. Maybe Cale could play a similar finisher role like Samu did for Rennie’s wallabies. Has Cale leapfrogged wilson in your eyes? He obviously has the lineout, but harry probably better (although not great) in the physical stuff and also has great hands in the loose. You’d have to say mcreight and valetini are shoe-ins at 7/8, so the question becomes who matches best with them at 6 and on the bench. I don’t know if he has a high enough ceiling, but id love to see wright given a shot based on how much bad luck he has had with injuries. He may also fit that no-nonsense graft/work rate irish approach…? If schmidt wants size and a 4/6 tweener then I’d probably pick Uru. On the bench I’d have no idea, Wilson if you want to give valetini a rest, and maybe hanigan/wright/uru as 6 replacements.
21 Go to commentsWho the heck is Billy Fulton?
13 Go to commentsCale has all the potential no doubt. So has Harry Wilson except for his dumb arse coach over the last few years who told him just to run at brick walls all the time. Valentini would be devastating at 6. As he was until some idiot thought oh yeah, move our best player to another position. Not mentioning any flightless or thank you names of course. I very much dislike claiming one player is the saviour, because injuries are so prevalent in the game these days as the players are bigger and faster, so the discussion should be who are at least the best two players in one position. For me it’s Harry Wilson and Cale at 8 at the moment with Valentini or Hooper from the Brumbies at 6. Great options. Seru Uru should be in the reserves too. A game changer.
21 Go to commentsScott Barrett is a card waiting to happen, Cane has been out with injury as well as playing in Japan, I think they’ll go with in-Japan-but-still-the-man Savea. Samisoni Taukeaho will be Captain after 2027, so he might get some Captain minutes against an Italy or Japan.
13 Go to comments