Under the Posts – Aug 17-23 begins with an open letter signed by International Athletes to World Rugby, Farah Palmer Cup delays their start, discussions around a women’s global calendar, 6 player features, 5 medias and 1 #RugbyJobs.
Featured Women’s Rugby News
IGR has released a fantastic response to the proposed World Rugby ban on transgender women. It’s literally 200+ pages of solid research and supporting materials.
We’re also featuring an open letter that is signed by 127 International Athletes and counting.
Weekly Women’s Rugby News
The Farah Palmer Cup has delayed the start of their competition due to a small resurgence of cases in New Zealand. The start date will now be September 5, they were able to push back the start without trimming any matches.
World Rugby and the organizers of the Six Nations are discussing separating out the men’s and women’s tournaments. There is even discussion of a global women’s calendar, if that ever comes about…that would be a sight to see.
USA 7s is back to training in California and we’ve heard that XVs isn’t far behind.
RAN continues their Online Women’s Forum with presentations from Jenn Heinrich and Aleja Tucanes.
Last but not least, South America has appointed Barbara Pichot as their new Women’s Rugby Coordinator. She has been helping South American Rugby for a few years but now moves into a full-time role.
Women’s Rugby Player Features
- Harlequins Zoe Saynor speaks with NewsChain about her beginnings in rugby and the journey to professionalism
- Worcesters Jo Yapp talks to World Rugby about her promotion at Worcester, working with the Barbarians and her coaching philosophy
- Kenya’s Grace Adhiambo Okulu talks with Olympic Channel about qualifying for the Olympics
- USA’s Phaidra Knight talks with Sky Sports about the profile of the women’s game in the United States
Women’s Rugby Media/Podcasts/Videos
- Footage from the 1991 Women’s Rugby World Cup!
- England’s Danielle Waterman speaks with World Rugby about the 2014 RWC
- Australia’s Tiana Penitani Talks with Rugby Hive Podcast about missing the 2016Olympics
- USA’s Kristine Sommer talks with Red, White & Black Eye about why she created the XV Foundation
- England’s Sarah Bern speaks with the Women’s Rugby Show about how she can only get better
#RugbyJobs
- Wales is searching for various positions, check out their post!
Join Us
Can’t wait a week? Join us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram as we will be posting daily. We have a bit more dialogue on Twitter if you’d like to join in.
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1296204828801212416
Let @WorldRugby know that reversing the IOC & its own inclusive policy on trans athletes is not solidarity, not inclusion, and not rugby. Read the International Athletes' open letter here, https://t.co/jj4X4wuhfk.
— Athlete Ally (@AthleteAlly) August 20, 2020
Join the fight to #TackleTransphobia: https://t.co/Qswf44fH9y
This week, International Gay Rugby (IGR) continues to be at the forefront of supporting the most vulnerable individuals in the rugby community. They dropped a 200+ document that clearly outlines that “the proposed Transgender Guideline threaten to negate World Rugby’s international standing for inclusion and progressive policy decisions. Implementation of the guidelines in one move will destroy the amazing progress our sport has achieved for LGBTQIA+ people. Its leak has already increased transphobic hate speech on-line and put the safety and well-being of current rugby players at risk.”
We’re also featuring ‘Rugby For All’ Open Letter to World Rugby. International Athletes, referees and coaches are putting their signature for all to see.
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1295873156188602370
The start of the Farah Palmer Cup has been delayed and will now kick off on September 5. The cause of the pushback was because Covid-19 cases were discovered in the community and Auckland was forced into an alert level 3 lockdown.
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1296492358847148035
World Rugby and the Six Nations have confirmed that they are exploring separating the men’s and women’s Six Nations tournaments, as part of a planned global women’s rugby calendar.
Last year the women’s six nations matches were played at the same time as the men’s. This clearly doesn’t help the sport grow and forced spectators to choose.
We’re most excited about a women’s global calendar, it’s about time!
https://twitter.com/USARugby/status/1295371628101148674
USA 7s is back to the grind! We’ve heard that XVs won’t be far behind them and may even have some assemblies this fall and possibly a match or two?
https://twitter.com/MartinXRugby/status/1295651869340164096
Rugby in Iran is exploding, 20 per cent from 10,000 to 12,000 between 2019-20 alone. While they aren’t full World Rugby members, that is their goal.
7,000 of those registered players are female. Nahid Biyarjomandi, who founded the first women’s rugby club in Iran and is a ‘Try And Stop Us’ ambassador.
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1296441333356404739
As promised we have released our findings into the Crystal Cooke incident and the surrounding events.
The incident and surrounding activities are very complex. In the end we find that Cooke & Tornetto are victims of many broken systems. They were failed by Union County, Empire and USA Rugby. We identified EIGHT failures that took place across all of these groups.
Change can take ages but we know that Union County, USA Rugby and the Empire DC still have the chance to right these wrongs. They just have to choose to do the right thing.
https://twitter.com/RugbyAmericasN/status/1296456242026680320
In the 2nd part of last night’s ‘The Road to 15s: Creating a More Inclusive Game’ forum, @WorldRugby Council Member @AlejaTucanes – who was representing @fecorugby & @sudamericarugby – spoke in-depth about her experience growing the game in South America https://t.co/0H7R7xUS4R
— RugbyAmericasNorth (@RugbyAmericasN) August 20, 2020
RAN’s Online Women’s Forum continues with two more presentations. First up was Jenn Heinrich on ‘The Road to 15s: Creating a More Inclusive Game’ and then World Rugby Council Member Alejandra Betancur spoke in-depth about her experience growing the game in South America.
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1295510856520933378
South America Rugby has hired Barbara Pichot as their new Women’s Rugby Coordinator. Women’s rugby in South America has seen strong growth in recent years in the region, with teams in all sixteen countries in the region and growing numbers of participants.
“It is a pleasure to be able to add Barbara to our staff in South America Rugby and we trust that, with her, we will be able to further push the growth and development of women in rugby,” said Santiago Ramallo, General Manager of South America Rugby when announcing the hiring. .
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1295359851254751233
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1297322798776496128
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1297217071491821580
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1296809477929410561
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1295465508687491075
https://twitter.com/WorldRugby/status/1296771332005388289
https://twitter.com/rugbyhive/status/1295755901740167170
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1296854691658305536
https://twitter.com/WomensRugbyShow/status/1296160006111256577
https://twitter.com/yscrugby/status/1297277378926960640