Women's rugby
|
|
| Highest governing body | International Rugby Board |
|---|---|
| Nicknames | Rugger |
| First played | 19th century |
| Characteristics | |
| Contact | Full Contact |
| Team members | Fifteen |
| Type | Team sport, Outdoor |
| Equipment | Rugby ball |
Women's rugby union is a sport identical to the men's game with the same rules, same sized pitch, and same equipment. However, it has a history which is significantly different, due to various social pressures, and the self-image of rugby union in general. As a result, this history has been largely hidden until comparatively recently, although the game is gaining a higher profile thanks to international tournaments and financial investment.
The secretive nature of the early years of women’s sport - and especially rugby union - ensures that we do not really know where it began. Public reaction to women playing contact sports could be contemptuous, or even violent. In 1881, when two teams played a number of exhibition "football" games in Scotland and northern England, several games had to be abandoned due to rioting in or around the grounds.
While most of these games appear to have been played to the new Association Football rules, it is clear from reports in the Liverpool Mercury of 27 June 1881 that at least one of these games, played at the Cattle Market Inn Athletic Grounds, Stanley, Liverpool on the 25th, involved scoring goals following "touchdowns" and may therefore have been played to at least a version of rugby rules.
Whether this was the case will never be known. However, a series of sporting cigarette cards, published 1895 in the Liverpool, includes an image of a woman apparently playing what looks like rugby in kit very similar to that described in reports of the 1881 team (see left). It is therefore possible that these "exhibition" games similar to those in 1881 may have continued (with no press reporting) or the pictures may have been reprints for earlier illustrations inspired by the 1881 games, or they may just be an "amusing" cartoon or an illustration of a sport that was not actually being played. Again no further details are available.
Other than this the official record is silent for most of the nineteenth century. Some girls played the game unofficially as part of their school teams — and the earliest confirmed record of any female definitely playing rugby at any level anywhere in the world comes from a school game.
This happened at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Ireland. Emily Valentine's brothers were responsible for the formation of the school's first rugby team in c1884. Emily practised with the team and in c1887 she played for the school, scoring a try.
The first documented evidence of an attempt to form a purely women's team is from 1891 when a tour of New Zealand by a team of female rugby players was cancelled due to a public outcry.
There are also early reports of women’s rugby union being played in France (1903) and England (1913) but in both cases the game was largely behind closed doors.
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