France v Black Ferns 1
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@gibbon-rib No, the Ferns get some payment for the days they are in camp/on tour and/or play tests IIRC. It's not much. They still need full time jobs to survive.
It's better than it was, but insufficient. With SR Aupiki being only 4 matches, that won't solve the problem either.
Edited to add that the Welsh Union has recently announced that a certain number of Welsh players will get professional contracts. Don't know whether this will be at the same level as the English players.
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@stargazer said in France v Black Ferns 1:
@gibbon-rib No, the Ferns get some payment for the days they are in camp/on tour and/or play tests IIRC. It's not much. They still need full time jobs to survive.
It's better than it was, but insufficient. With SR Aupiki being only 4 matches, that won't solve the problem either.
Edited to add that the Welsh Union has recently announced that a certain number of Welsh players will get professional contracts. Don't know whether this will be at the same level as the English players.
Without wishing to defend the NZRU, that's got to be a significant factor - English & French women have probably improved significantly in the last couple of years. I guess for NZ to compete they'll either need to find the money to make the Ferns pro, or players will need to get contracts in the English / French leagues
Yeah, WRU recently announced that 10 women will be getting contracts next year, with some smaller payments for the rest. Haven't seen the numbers, I'll try to dig them up. But I'll be surprised if they're comparable to the English, the WRU mismanages on a tiny budget compared to the RFU
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Have a look at this..
Miles ahead of our women rugby structure. One time that the club structure of England really benefits them. Prem Clubs financing and coaching women's teams with underpinning regional and age group comps.
From what I can see there are 18 rounds plus semis and final in the premiership.
We have a lot of catching up to do.
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Some more info here, article is about Wales but it also mentions other European countries:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/59149146
"The contract announcement sees the WRU follow in the footsteps of the Rugby Football Union in England, which awarded some of its 15-a-side female players first professional deals in 2016. Five years on, the Red Roses have 28 contracted players ... [edited to remove offensive content] ... Elsewhere, France are semi-professional, 10 Scotland players have contracts, Ireland get per diems - a set amount of money every day when they play - while Italy get their expenses paid for."
Welsh contracts are described as 10 "full-time deals" plus 15 "retainer contracts. But apparently the "full-time" deals are only worth £19k (retainers are £7.5k), so they'd probably need another job (or family support) to survive. Can't find anything on how much the English women are paid.
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Canada is the level that the ferns are, sadly, when compared to professional England
Cowell leads way as England Women power past Canada for another big win
Heather Cowell scored the first and third of England’s seven tries in the 51-12 win over Canada at the Stoop
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There was a bit of talk prior to the tour about the lack of Black Ferns test matches over the last couple of years being a big issue. That is true, but what I think is also true is the lack of depth and strength in the domestic game. A bit like the White Ferns face, the standard at home is a significant drop from international level.
Semi professionalism or full professionalism will help. I think I made a comment last season about women's domestic rugby reminding me of the men's game prior to 1995. In the sense that you could still usually guess the position a player plays from, say, 50m away without seeing the number on their back.
I haven't seen as much of the Farah Palmer Cup this year as other posters, but the parts I did see suggest the fitness/work rate of the domestic comp still has a way to go to help prepare the very best players for test matches.
Not sure of the financial modelling of rugby in these Covid-times, but hopefully someone somewhere is crunching some numbers.
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@stargazer English clubs aren't giving out contracts as such. The top English players are on central contracts with the RFU, but England regularly pick uncontracted players as well. The rest of the players in the Premier 15s are amateur.
Players come to England because they want to play in the best coached / highest standard women's league, and either combine it with study or work in the UK or take a sabbatical to do so - they don't have issues getting released for international squads because they aren't being paid to play by the clubs.
Canadian International lock Emma Taylor works in projects for the Canadian Navy. She took a 6 month unpaid sabbatical from work to join Premier 15s champions Saracens in 2020 to prepare herself for the expected 2021 World Cup. After playing in the 2021 Premier 15s final, she went back to her day job in Canada. Basically anyone good enough will be welcomed to play as I understand it.
It will be interesting to watch the quality of Super Rugby Aupiki compared to the top of the table clashes and knock out stage of the Premier 15s.
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It is shear game time that the Prem League offers. You get better by playing.
As some here now I have connections to a young player in NZ and her dad and I sat down one day and worked out the number of minutes (yes minutes) that she has actually played in competition games. It was scarily low and many 3rd form boys would have 10 times the experience.
Yes, she's young but still played FPC this year based on that minimal experience. It shows too as there are so many game moments when there is hesitation or lack of reading the game more than just reacting.
The hard part is finding that experience and gametime. Moving town doesn't always provide more games as something like an 8 team league draw is often 7 games plus finals when a 4 team league is played home and away and provides 6 games plus finals.
Throw in the odd injury or cancelled game and that's not a lot of rugby. -
@crucial Totally agree, but that is probably reflective of the number of players. There are only around 1200 senior women registered in NZ at all levels. England is a fair bit smaller than South Island and has 8000+, and a lot of women's Rugby League in the North too. Everything will work better with increased participation. Ireland has a smaller population than NZ and more registered senior women, so it is possible.
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@stargazer said in France v Black Ferns 1:
@bovidae Yep, I'm definitely going to watch one of the replays of that England v Canada test.
There are replays on Monday:
1.25pm (Sky Sport 9) and 10.30pm (Sky Sport 2)The scoreline doesn't really reflect the game & worth remembering that Canada were 2 years without a test as well until they met the USA a few weeks back. Canada were well in the mix during the first half - 7-5 up on 23 minutes and brought it back from 15-7 to 15-12 on 35 mins. A good number of the Canadian squad have been playing in England & France recently, so maybe not as rusty as the Black Ferns. Full game is on YouTube (British BBC coverage)
Rugby Football Union for Women - Wikipedia
