Women’s Rugby needing the $$$ – Guest blog by YSC on U7s

I have partnered with UR7s to do a monthly blog, so I will post the article here and it will be available on UR7s as well. Very exciting and this will hopefully bring more exposure to the 7s side of things.

from UR7s:

I am so happy to be writing here on UR7s! You may be familiar with my main blog at Your Scrumhalf Connection, but I am branching out to a few partner sites.

I started the blog Your Scrumhalf Connection because I was incredibly frustrated with the lack of coverage for women’s rugby. The original form of YSC was a much smaller version only meant to cover rugby in the Western Rugby Union.

But after a few months when I realized that most of my visitors were from outside the Western Rugby Union, I quickly branched out to include all women’s rugby.

While the focus of YSC is always changing, the main core has been to promote and evolve women’s rugby. As a player, coach, referee and lover of the game I can’t imagine my life without rugby and my blog. But lets be honest, one girl and a computer can’t do it all!

That is why I was so excited when UR7s asked me to contribute on their site. The more positive sites out there with the same purpose to bring women’s rugby into the light means the more support we will have.

Speaking of support, I was so enthused at the turnout at the February USA Sevens Tournament!

Our men and women had some great performances, especially the 2nd place finish for the women. This is the 2nd year in a row that the USA women have come in 2nd at this tournament. It followed up on an encouraging few days at the Dubai Sevens back in December also.

Next up for our National teams is Hong Kong Sevens and we will expect our teams to domintate there as well. WRONG!

The women unfortunately will not be attending Hong Kong Sevens and will actually have a long sabattical from International rugby since there is no Hong Kong funding for the Sevens girls. Well, that kind of makes sense since this is a World Cup year for the 15s program, right? Wait, wait, you say that the 15s program is hurting for money as well?
This disappoints me gravely as our women in both programs have proven themselves over and over on pitches across the world. I don’t want to turn this article into an analysis over how much the women have won or not won compared to the men…but its time to demand equal funding for our programs again.

The USA women’s program is heading to the 2010 Rugby World Cup with minimal funding and minimal training time together. They recently had a Developmental Camp but will only have one other skill camp and possibly two test matches against Canada before we they leave for England on August 8. While there are rumors of a camp leading up to the World Cup, who knows if the funding will arrive in time?
Since there is limited funding for the 15s team to prepare for the World Cup, what will happen in 2016 when the Sevens team heads to the Olympics? We all know that sending an army to a battle with no spears is not very smart and I hate to say it but that is what it feels like!

Now I know our women will rally with what they are given and continue to show their heart, commitment and desire, but can USA Rugby honestly say they have done everything they could have done to prepare our Women’s National teams?

Let us wait and see.