The auditions start now: One year to go until the first British & Irish Lions Women tour

There is exactly one year to go until the British & Irish Lions Women play their first tour match in New Zealand.

By then the British & Irish Lions Women will have been a project more than six years in the making. Now it is 12 months away from becoming a reality.

It is a team that was launched after a feasibility study that took just shy of three years before it was announced a team would come into existence, and give the top players from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales the opportunity to compete together under one banner for the very first time. A game changer for women’s rugby.

At their January 2024 announcement, Lions CEO Ben Calveley said: “We do believe this is a historic milestone in our 136-year history and we’re really pleased to be announcing the 2027 tour.

“We wanted to make sure we were taking decisions that were in the best interest of the Lions and the best interest of the women’s game. This is day one for us and we’ve got lots of decisions to make.”

On Saturday 4 September 2027, the Lions Women will play the Black Ferns XV at Okara Park in Whangarei to kick-start the Howden British & Irish Lions Women’s Series in Aotearoa.

Just a week later the Lions will play Whitney Hansen’s Black Ferns in the first of three Test matches. That fixture will take place at Go Media Stadium in Auckland.

The Lions will also play a midweek match against an Invitation XV in Hamilton, prior to the final Tests in Wellington and Christchurch. It is sure to be a festival of women’s rugby hosted in the nation that has seen its team claim six Women’s Rugby World Cup titles. More than anyone else.

The schedule will be attritional and stretch the selected squad to its limit against one of the best teams in the world. But, what a way to start a whole new era.

Excitement grew further in May when the Lions appointed their inaugural head coach. Jo Yapp was not the name many people had noted down to take charge of the side – Red Roses boss John Mitchell was many people’s favourite – but the former England scrum-half is the perfect fit for the Lions.

The 46-year-old has elite coaching experience with the Wallaroos and was appointed head of Women’s Pathways at England Rugby before her appointment as Lions Women coach.

With a passion for developing players during her time with England Under-20s, the University of Exeter and Worcester Warriors, the Lions have appointed a coach whose fingerprints can be seen across the English and international club game.

She is, in many ways, an unbiased selection too. Unlike men’s tours, Yapp cannot be criticised for having favourites. She is not the head coach of England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales. There will be no ‘geography six’.

Jo Yapp, British & Irish Lions Women head coach, said: “To lead the first-ever British & Irish Lions Women’s Team is an incredible honour and something I’m immensely proud of.

“The Lions represents the very best of our sport, and this Tour to New Zealand is an opportunity to create something truly special and help shape the future of women’s rugby for years to come.

 

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“I know from experience how challenging it is to face the Black Ferns on home soil, but that challenge is exactly what makes this Tour so exciting.”

WXV Global Series starts the countdown

One year to go also starts the months of supporters, reporters and players muttering under their breath; ‘will [insert name here] make the tour?’

Even 12 months out you have a general idea of some players that will definitely be boarding a flight, injury dependent. But there are plenty of probables too.

That uncertainty adds an extra layer of intrigue to every match minute that a player gets between now and the day Yapp announces her touring squad.

The WXV Global Series marks the start of all this. For six of the next eight weeks the top 12 rugby nations in the world will be facing off with one another. Both England and Scotland have Tests with the Black Ferns scheduled. It is a dream two months for women’s rugby fans.

It is the perfect stage for a Lions Women audition to begin.

“That’s going to be the thread that runs through all of WXV, all of the Six Nations and even in PWR to some extent,” former England prop Shaunagh Brown told RugbyPass.

“The questions: is she playing well enough to get picked for the tour? Maybe someone we thought was going to be a dead cert has had an awful couple of games in a row.

“Players themselves will be thinking; I hope this doesn’t take me out of contention for the tour. It’ll be on the comms on the TV and in the media. We had it for the World Cup last year.

“Any niggle a player gets, any dropped ball, missed tackle, all of that. I do think it will be the thread that runs through the season.”

The countdown is very much on. What is not to like?