Saru working to develop women’s rugby

The South African Rugby Union (Saru) has prioritised the development of women’s rugby in the country with the recent appointment of the former Ireland international, Lynn Cantwell, as women’s head of high performance.

It is a move to give impetus to improve the women’s game in the country. However, COVID-19‘s negative impact on sport’s ability to attract and generate funding will be a challenge because programmes need to be implemented.

The women’s national team will represent the country at the Women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in October. Having developmental structures in place and competitions at the provincial level would help ensure that when players go and represent the country at an international level, they would be competitive.

The reigning Rugby World champions, the Springboks, are the country’s pride and have been over the years winning the World Cup on three occasions.

They are also currently ranked number one in the world. But the women’s game still lags behind and it is not something confined to the country or to rugby only.

However, Saru is taking steps to ensure that women’s rugby is developed in the country at the grassroots level and that a pipeline of talent for the provincial teams and the national team is created.

Cantwell says they have had discussions with provinces as they try to put programmes in place for the sustainable development of women’s rugby in the country.

“Developmental work needs to be done to make it sustainable. We assume developmental structures are there but they are not. But if we could look at that strategically and ensure that finances are pumped in to ensure that this game would go on for longer and those are some of the considerations that would be helpful.”

Plans to get women’s ranking high 

SA Rugby wants the women’s game to be ranked high up there just below the Springboks.

Director of Rugby, Rassie Erasmus, says the women’s programme will be different from the men’s. The aim, he says, is to get the team performing at a much higher level.

However, with budget constraints due to a lack of funding, a shift in their mindset with regards to the development of the women’s game will not be reflected immediately. He says it will be some time before that can be achieved because the SA Rugby has suffered financially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It won’t be immediate, the immediate impact is that everybody is focused on the development of women’s rugby, the budget while we are in this COVID crush it will be a transition and the sole reason is because of COVID to find sponsors, most of our programmes are currently running on zero budget honestly.”

The Bok Women will kick off their World Cup campaign with a match against France on 8 October.