Women’s Rugby in 60 secs – Jan 17-23

Welcome to the top women’s rugby news in under 60 seconds for Jan 17-23. It was a big week! USA won the first leg of Spain 7s, Hong Kong and Samoa dropped out of qualifying for the Rugby World Cup 2021 due to COVID restrictions, Wales handed out an additional nine retainer contracts and new Irish CEO Kevin Potts will meet with player representatives next week.

In more XVs news, top female match officials have been appointed to the Men’s U20 Six Nations so they can prepare for the RWC 2021, South Africa and Wales shared their RWC training squads, RTE & Virgin Media announced extended coverage of the Six Nations and the 2022 Europe Championship fixtures were revealed.

In domestic XVs, we cover Ireland’s Energia AIL playoffs round 2, Allianz Premier 15s round 11, France’s Elite 1, Kenya Cup, we look ahead to Scotland’s Premiership playoffs on January 29 and Australia’s Sky Super Rugby Aupiki announced matches will begin in March.

We close out the week with 10 features and 7 media.

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tl;dr: Women’s Rugby in 60 secs for Jan 17-23 sees USA win the first leg of Spain 7s, Hong Kong and Samoa will not attempt to qualify for RWC 2021 due to COVID, Wales handed out an additional 9 retainer contracts and new IRFU CEO will meet with a player representative group.

60 Second Video Update

Featured Women’s Rugby Stories

A mixed bag this week as we’re looking at three different stories:

Hong Kong and Samoa are unable to attend the Final Qualification Tournament next month and will end their journey towards qualification for Rugby World Cup 2021

The Asia Rugby Women’s Championship will no longer take place and Kazakhstan will automatically qualify for the Final Qualification Tournament

The bottom two ranked teams (Kazakhstan and Colombia) will now play in a semi-final on 19 February, 2022 at 16:30 local time

The winner of Kazakhstan v Colombia will play Scotland in the final on 25 February, 2022 at 19:00 local time

The winner of the final will secure the last remaining spot for Rugby World Cup 2021

Nine more retainer contracts were named for Wales:

Forwards Gwen Crabb, Georgia Evans, Kat Evans, Cerys Hale, Abbie Fleming and Bethan Lewis, along with backs Kerin Lake, Caitlin Lewis and Niamh Terry, will train alongside the 12 full-time players between one and three days a week. Up to six more players on Retainer Contracts are set to be added in the coming weeks

Wales Women head coach Ioan Cunningham has named a training squad of 42 players as they prepare for the Six Nations and the Rugby World Cup 2021

A meeting between new IRFU chief executive Kevin Potts and a representative group from the Irish women’s team will take place in the coming days to discuss issues raised by players in a strongly-worded letter sent to the Government last month

Top Women’s Rugby Stories

XVs

International

• The world’s top female match officials have been appointed to the men’s U20 Six Nations Championship as part of their preparation for Rugby World Cup 2021, playing in 2022
• RTE & Virgin Media Announce Extended Coverage Of Men’s, Women’s & U20 Six Nations
• The 2022 European Championships have been announced featuring Netherlands, Russia and Spain
• Springbok Women’s Sevens coach Paul Delport has named his training squad as they continue to prepare for the Rugby World Cup 2021

Domestic

• Ireland’s AIL Round 2 saw Railway Union’s 10-match unbeaten run snapped by Blackrock College and Suttonians and Galwegians lead the way in the Conference
  • Top Four
    • Railway Union 13 Blackrock 16
    • UL Bohemians 41 Old Belvedere 7
  • Conference
    • Galwegians 27 Cooke 7
    • Suttonians 46 Malone 5
    • Wicklow 14 Ballincollig 17
• Saracens are still on top of Allianz Premier 15s after Round 11 but are still closely pursued by Bristol, Exeter, Harlequins and Gloucester-Hartpury
  • Wasps 22 Loughborough 41
  • Sale 26 Saracens 41
  • DMP Durham 5 Worcester 74
• Watsonian ended Scotland’s Tennent’s Premiership at the top of table but only by 1 point as Hillhead Jordanhill was on their heels; they now look ahead to playoffs
  • Jan 29
    • Watsonian vs Hillhead Jordanhill
    • Corstorphine vs Stirling County
    • Heriot’s Blues vs Cartha Queens
• Toulouse has a solid 30 points in France’s Elite 1 with ASM Romagnat chasing with 23, AC Bobigny 93 with 14 and French Stadium has 13
• Yamanashi Impala Saracens and Mwamba are tied in the standings in the Kenya Cup while Northern Suburbs and Top Fry Nakuru look for improvement
• Australia’s Sky Super Rugby Aupiki announced matches will begin in March and that Sky will have all matches live and exclusive as well as naming rights 

7s

• USA took home the gold in Malaga, the first leg of Spain 7s as they defeated Russia 35-10. Australia took third over France 33-7
  • Seville 7s is January 28-30

Women’s Rugby Features

• New batch of role models driving women’s game in Wicklow after receiving entrance into Ireland’s Energia AIL in 2019
• Wastonian’s Briar McNamara chats ahead of her Tennent’s Playoff match against Jordanhill
• Wales Online features Wales’ new professional rugby players who have quit their full-time jobs to accept first WRU contracts
• New Zealand’s Melodie Robinson opens up on women’s rugby, female leadership – and her future
• England’s Tamara Taylor at 39, and after 115 England appearances, four Rugby World Cup campaigns and fourteen years playing for Darlington Mowden Park, felt she was being forced out of top-flight English rugby before her time, but then she fired up her Twitter account
• Tufts’ Mary Money reflects on her efforts to establish the sport at Tufts—and beyond
• Belgium stepped in for New Zealand at Malaga 7s, what did it mean for the squad?
• Ireland’s Anna Caplice writes for Balls.ie how sport can be the answer in the battle for gender equality in Ireland
• Rugby Pass profiles England’s Helena Rowland and her transitions between playing 10 and 12
• Chiefs Manawa team have confirmed an experienced coaching group for the inaugural Super Rugby Aupiki Women’s competition this year

Women’s Rugby Media

• The next #YouthUnstoppables are Talei and Patience of Fiji and Ghana
• Ireland’s Fiona Coghlan and Sene Naoupu discuss where the Irish are ahead of the 2022 Six Nations 
• Watch all the highlights from all 3 days of Malaga 7s
• RTE Sport talks with Ireland’s Lily Peat about retirement