Women answer rugby's call

Mention women's rugby and the jokes start coming at you like a rolling maul- but clubs are finding there is more interest in the game than they hadsuspected, reports Shane Hegarty.

It is Sunday evening at Templeville Road rugby ground, where St Mary's are taking on Ashbourne. The man visiting the toilet before the kick-off is no George Hook. "There's a few good-looking girls on the team, but they're a bit young for me," he says.

Women's rugby. These are two words that many believe should not be put together. Even when they are, they keep coming unstuck again. It is a sport that has always struggled to attract players, coaches, supporters and, most importantly, respect. It's a gift for cynics. Mention that you're off to see a women's rugby match and the jokes stampede at you like a rolling maul.

This is a practice match, a pre-season run-out for those who have heard all the jokes already and some who have never been on a rugby pitch before. It is an understandably scrappy affair. Balls are dropped, kicks fluffed, tackles missed. It is obvious that, because these players do not have the foundation of a childhood playing the game, they struggle with its technical aspects.

What is a surprise, though, is how physical the game is. It's easy to expect prissiness and the waving of manicured nails. The reality is fierce rucking and mauling and some tackles to make the eyes water. After the game players from both teams display bruises they claim to be bite marks, although all insist that it is the first time they've had this happen to them.

On the terraces, the elder members of the club are cheering on the team.

Once the football has ended on the bar's big screen, the younger men come out to watch, an undeniable tinge of sarcasm in their cheers. When a big tackle goes in, as one they flinch comically.

The St Mary's captain, Gillian Fullerton, says she's heard it all before, but that once men come to a match they tend to have a little more respect.

"The older guys in the club are great supporters," she says. "I think the younger guys think we're playing because we fancy them or something."

It's the referees who are often the most patronising, she adds; the older ones find the violence between ladies a little too hard to accept.

Sitting on the terrace after the game, Fullerton, who is 26, prods at her nose, fearing she may have broken it for the second time this year. This is only her second year playing rugby.

"I always enjoyed it and I went to all the big matches growing up, but I hadn't the guts to play," she says. When she saw a notice on the St Mary's website looking for women players, she decided to give it a go. "I was really nervous at the first training session, but I had such an adrenaline buzz afterwards I couldn't sleep."

She had played representative badminton, but the badminton buzz, she says, does not quite match up.

The physical aspects of the game don't bother her. She learnt early on that the best way to get hurt is to not get stuck in, although, she says, "it's more acceptable for a guy to come to work on a Monday morning with a black eye and tell the boss that he got it playing rugby".

Fullerton recognises that the skill level is nowhere near that of the men's game, in which players have been holding, passing and kicking a ball from an early age and know the positions and rules intimately. For insurance reasons, girls between the ages of 11 and 17 are not allowed to play full-contact rugby, which means that most drift away from kids' mini-rugby before returning later in life.

"Most women only take it up in their 20s, so it's mini-rugby standard, only it's played by adults, obviously physically bigger and stronger," Fullerton says. "When they start a lot of girls can't pass; they don't know what a scrum is. I didn't think we'd last, but we've come a long way in the past year. Some of those on the team had never even picked up a rugby ball before."

For St Mary's rugby club this is the second year of a drive towards building a solid, successful women's side in a sport in which teams come and go, coaches shy away and players have mayfly careers. The club has set up a coaching and administrative structure that is not available to most women's teams, and it is proud of the fact that, uniquely among clubs, the female players, like the male, are full voting members.

Ashbourne RFC, meanwhile, has had a women's team for 11 seasons but last Sunday could put out only 13 players and is currently without a coach. Despite this, the team has won its first two matches and is confident of improving on last season's mid-table position in Division Two. Team captain Louise Kavanagh says that Ashbourne started with 20 players this season, but it can be difficult keeping them.

"We try and make it as comfortable and welcoming as possible for new players, but for some it's just not in them," she says. Although the club has always been supportive of the team, she adds, it has been unable to find someone to step in and replace the coach this year. The women are reliant on the guidance of players from the men's senior team.

Having been "brought up on a rugby pitch" and played for three years, 20-year-old Kavanagh has also heard all the predictable remarks from the men.

"The usual reaction is: 'What are you doing? That's a man's game.' But it's always the ones who haven't come and watched us play who say that. They have to see a game to realise that it's not a bunch of headless chickens running around," she says. After we talk, Louise has to go to hospital with a suspected broken arm.

While Ulster has had its own women's rugby development officer, Joy Sparkes, for two years, Michelle Banks was appointed the first Leinster rugby development officer for the women's game last year. Banks is also a St Mary's back, and she is working hard to change the attitude among both sexes.

Initially employed to develop tag rugby - a contact-free version of rugby league - in girls' schools, the Leinster branch was so impressed at the demand that it decided to extend its initiative into the full-contact game.

"There's a huge amount of girls playing tag rugby," Banks says. "But trying to encourage them to make that transition from tag to the full-contact Rugby Union, that's the bottom line."

The Leinster strategy is to encourage tag rugby in girls' secondary schools and then to introduce the schools to local clubs and host open days. Alongside this strategy, she hopes a structure can be developed to support existing and emerging teams, because, as many have found, it takes huge commitment from both individuals and clubs to keep a team afloat.

"There's no feeder line," she says. "Girls might play tag rugby at primary school but there's nothing for them after that because a lot of clubs just don't want to know about the game. So there are no coaches willing to take it on. It will take two or three years to get things right." It won't be easy, but she's optimistic. "It's hard for new players. The open days move them on slowly into tackling and it can be quite daunting.

"A lot might come down to a training session but don't come back. So there can be a quick turnaround. But it's often about getting them past that first hurdle that is tackling. And once they do that, they enjoy it."

Leinster play Connacht at Newbridge and Ulster play Munster at Nenagh Ormond tomorrow at 2.30 p.m. Admission is free. For further information on women's rugby, see www.wirfu.com

Ireland has 38 women's teams and 1,450 registered players.

There are three league divisions. UL-Bohemians are champions of

Division One, Boyne of Division Two

and Navan of Division Three.

University College Cork are

champions of the Colleges League,

while University of Limerick won the Inter-Varsity Championship, as they have every year since 1998.

As in the men's game, Munster is the heartland of women's rugby, having won the last three inter-provincial championships.

Ireland's sole win in last year's Six Nations came when they beat Spain 16-0 in Madrid. Vice-captain Fiona Steed is our most capped player, having played 52 times.

Girls between the age of 11 and 17 are barred from playing full-contact rugby. At the age of 17 they need permission from their parents.