Women's Rugby Adapts

I was delighted to see that the Premier 15s – the top division for women’s rugby in England – has secured a title sponsor for the coming season: Allianz.

Allianz bring much needed revenue to the women’s game following a 25% cut in funding from the RFU.

I am also interested to see how the new season, starting next weekend, will pan out with the use of adapted laws designed to minimise the impact of Covid-19.

The new laws will include having 35-minute halves, awarding free-kicks instead of scrums for a forward pass and not having a scrum option at a free-kick or penalty – all of which are designed to reduce face-to-face contact in light of the fact that , as the league includes a mix of professional and amateur players, systematic Covid-19 testing is not feasible.

The lack of testing is a worry – especially given the chaos surrounding the men’s Premiership at the moment – but if the new measures do work then potentially there may just be light at the end of the tunnel as far as the grassroots game as a whole is concerned.

Fingers crossed…

Total Flanker – the older I get, the better I was