First ever women’s rugby game

Women’s sport rarely gets the coverage that men’s sport gets – but despite that we know that women’s cricket has been played for over 250 years, and women’s football has a well documented history going back 100 years.

Compared to these sports women’s rugby’s history is patchy and incredibly recent – so much so that anyone who played or has any stories, photographs or records from even before 1960 and 1970s may not realise how important they are.

According to World Rugby, the global governing body of rugby union, there are already 2.7 million women playing rugby in 2019, with a 28% increase since the start of a development plan (and 10% increase on 2018 numbers) that aims to double the number of female players between 2017 and 2025. Rugby in general is going through huge growth with lot’s of new nations starting to excel at the sport and the women’s game is no exception.

Not much has been written about the development of women’s rugby, but this is what we managed to scrape together.

The earliest reference to women actually playing rugby proper dates from 1881 with an England versus Scotland game at Liverpool. The game was one of a series on both sides of the border which appear to have mainly been played according to Football Association rules, but reports of the game on 25th June made definite references to touchdowns indicating that something akin to rugby was played on that occasion.

Women’s rugby has evolved massively since it’s inception in the 1800’s, and the game has produced some incredible talent over the years. But it took a long time, as the women’s game only became more main stream in the 1960’s and French team Toulouse we’re one on the first clubs to start a women’s team.

In 1884 Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh in Ireland was going through a difficult period. Student numbers were low and Mr Steele – the aged headmaster – passed on the effective running of the school to Classics master and Assistant Headteacher, William Valentine, who had joined the school in 1883.

Valentine had at least three children of school age including William (aged about 16), John (aged about 10/11), and “Miss E F Valentine” all of whom attended the school. The three children wanted to play rugby, and with the help of several friends started playing. To begin with this was not supported by the school, who denied them access to the main school field, but they still practiced and played intra-school matches every Saturday. The first official matches against external opposition took place in 1887, but several records suggest that there were games as early as 1885 against local opposition, possibly in combination with Enniskillen Rugby Club.

School records, and letters from Miss Valentine (later Mrs Galway) in the 1950s, show that she definitely took part in the practices and intra-school games, and some records suggest the external games as well. Several sources say that the entire three-quarter line was made up of Valentines, with Miss E F playing on the wing.

William Valentine (snr) would appear to have left the school in about 1891 when a new head was appointed. Both William (jnr) and John went to Trinity College , Dublin . Miss E F married and appears to have moved to Canada , though there is some suggestion that she may have moved to South Africa.

Astonishingly, simply no other records at all of any women or girls playing rugby of any sort in the nineteenth century – either as individuals or as teams. The only other nineteenth century record is that of an abortive attempt to form a women’s touring team in New Zealand in 1891.

There are some vague suggestions of some women playing rugby in France in 1903, and a passing reference to a coach organising a girls game on a beach in England in 1913, but other than that there is no signs of any women or girls actively involved in rugby until at least 16th December 1917 when a charity match took place at Cardiff Arms Park between “Cardiff Ladies” and “Newport Ladies”, Cardiff winning 6-0.

After that a handful of photographs, and less than two minutes of film, shows that women’s rugby was played in France, Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s and 1930s, but there are no records of who played and how popular was – and these pioneering attempts ended with the War, after which there are no records of any women playing rugby until the 1960s when the game began to be played in the UK, North America and France. Women’s clubs began to appear in these countries and New Zealand 1970’s, and the first international was played in 1982.

But it was not until 1990 – over 100 years after Miss Valentine fought to get her school team started – that Ireland ’s first women’s club was formed.

By 1980 there were club championships in the United States and Sweden, and provincial championships in New Zealand. The game first appeared in Japan in 1981. In the UK 1983 saw the Women’s Rugby Football Union (WRFU) formed to govern the game across the British Isles.

The first international tournament was not until 1990 – RugbyFest was held in Christchurch, New Zealand. A variety of club sides, including teams from Japan and four were four national teams€”USA, New Zealand, USSR, and the Netherlands – all played a round-robin format tournament. RugbyFest would be the turning point for women’s rugby.

Women’s Rugby World Cup

The first women’s Rugby World Cup didn’t take place until 1991, it was held in Wales and timed to coincide with the second men’s world cup being held in England. However due to politics at World Rugby, only New Zealand, Wales, United States, England, France, Canada, Sweden, USSR, Japan, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands took part. The United States went on to win the first Women’s Rugby World Cup beating England in the final.

By 1993, the Irish and Scottish teams split from the Women’s Rugby Football Union (WRFU) to set up their own unions. It would be fair to say that the women’s game and financing was still very poorly represented in the early 90’s. Under major uncertainty, the second World Cup was held in Scotland after a last minute move from Netherlands. It would be a repeat of the 1991 final but this time England beat the United States 38€“23.

The first Home Nations Competition took place in 1996, followed by the first Hong Kong 7’s tournament for women in 1997. However it wasn’t until 1998 that women’s rugby got proper recognition, the 1998 women’s Rugby World Cup was the first to be fully sanctioned by the newly-renamed International Rugby Board, now World Rugby. This would act as a big driver for the game going forward.

Surprisingly in 2002 the Australian RFU dropped support for the women’s team’s entry to the World Cup.

Women Rugby World Cup 2019

The Women Rugby World Cup in 2019 was one of the biggest sporting events of the year, the 2019 RWC would back up the huge success the women’s game had at the Olympics. That success was matched off the field too with hugely increased engagement levels from female fans €“ 38 per cent increase in video views by women and the growth of the World Rugby and Rugby World Cup female audience on Twitter to more than 30 per cent.

The most successful nations in the World Cup have been New Zealand, which has won it five times, and England, which has reached the final seven times.

World Rugby has since become the first major sporting federation to adopt gender-neutral naming for tournaments as it was announced that the Womens Rugby World Cup would be rebranded as the Rugby World Cup

The tournament is currently underway in New Zealand, simply called the Rugby World Cup 2021 – the first tournament to fall under the gender neutral naming regulations – where 12 of the best teams on the planet are battling it out.

Facts about the RWC ‘21 in New Zealand

6 members of the England squad lifted the trophy at RWC 2014 in France, beating Canada 21-9 in the final in Paris.

7 matches that will be played at the iconic Eden Park, including both semi-finals, the bronze final and final.

9 players selected in the Black Ferns squad were part of the squad that won RWC 2017, beating England 42-31 in a classic final in Belfast.

9 players, Kendra Cocksedge, Renee Wickliffe, Sarah Hunter, Emily Scarratt, Sioned Harries, Elinor Snowsill, Caryl Thomas, Shannon Parry and Sharni Williams, were selected to appear at a fourth Rugby World Cup.

10 of the 12 competing nations in Auckland and Whangārei arrived in New Zealand with a participant in the RWC 2021 Coaching Internship Programme in their coaching team.

Fiji’s Sulila Waisega (18) was the youngest player to be selected to play at RWC 2021.

21 Fiji was the lowest team in the World Rugby Women’s Rankings powered by Capgemini at 21st, 20 places below England, who they play in their first ever Rugby World Cup match in 2022.

26 matches were played between 8 October and the final was at Eden Park on 12 November.

Australian scrum-half Iliseva Batibasaga (37) was the oldest player selected in a RWC 2021 squad. Batibasaga appeared at both RWC 2006 and RWC 2010.