I think money has come into the women’s game, a lot more for better and for worse. I think the top level is very much more professional, very much more results driven, and you know, there’s more infrastructure being put in place.
I do worry about the grassroots level. I think there’s a real surge of interest. And like Lewes’ junior ranks are fantastic. You know, we’ve got, I think we’ve got score of 26 for the under sixteens, which is great, and it’s great to see them come up. And we were, we were helping them out when they would like 12 and 13.
But the changes are, I do think, you know, it’s become, it’s become, oh, this is a, this could be a money making situation. And the premiership changed. I think they wanted more geographical spread, and they dumped some of the, you know, more teams such as Richmond, who were like, you know, groundbreaking in women’s rugby. They, you know, it was a club that really invested in women’s rugby really early, but because it wasn’t a premiership club from the men’s game, and it didn’t have the big stadium and everything like that, it got dumped. And that’s a sad bit. But I can also see that they want to try and make it a global brand, and therefore they need the bigger clubs backing it.
