Sitting In The Cheap Seats

The new Allianz Premier 15s season kicked off on the weekend with four entertaining match ups. Whilst three of the games were hotly contested the fourth was, on paper at least, a rout as Harlequins Women put 103 unanswered points on DMP Durham Sharks. Among the scorers was a recent re-acquisition for the club, returning England 7s flier Beth Wilcock and we caught up with her to find out how it felt to finally be back on the pitch!

The announcement on Monday last week that the Premier 15s would be kicking off imminently, with a new title sponsor and a host of temporary new laws was greeted with widespread joy from rugby fans, not least as it was a return toward normality. As one of the key figures in getting the league back Nicky Ponsford  the RFU’s head of women’s performance has all the insight into what we can expect. We caught up with Nicky ahead of the opening round of fixtures to see how she was feeling and what she was looking forward to most.

It’s been a while since an announcement for something new and exciting in the West End has come along, even longer since an announcement for a show that was actually imminent! This one naturally tickled our fancy so read on to find out more about Death Drop!

The Premier 15s are back! The elite women’s rugby competition kicks off this weekend with some notable changes! The TP15s becomes the AP15s with Allianz Insurance coming onboard as title sponsors. The league kicks off on October 10 th with a new title, two new teams and, for the foreseeable future, a few new laws too. Ahead of the season start we caught up with a few teams who will be looking to topple Saracens and Harlequins from their spots atop the table!

Women’s sports and the athletes who compete in them have long been a target for trolls and social media morons, they’ve borne it out with a stoicism a few o their male counterparts could learn from. Rugby sadly is no different and despite the ever-increasing profile of the women’s game 2020 has been a tough year. First games were cancelled, leagues declared null and void. Then two historic clubs were dropped from the Premier 15s who, around the same time lost their title sponsor. To date there is still no clear roadmap for the league, or indeed any women’s rugby, in England at least, to return. Then last week Canterbury launched the new Ireland jersey. The men’s kit was modelled by members of the Irish squad. The women’s shirt? Well, like me you might have been expecting Sene Naoupu, Anna Caplice or one of their teammates. Instead the kit was launched with models… A huge opportunity to put women in the spotlight lost. https://www.instagram.com/p/CEYvlWCAMl0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_lin...

If you talk to any rugby plyer about what they missed most during lockdown it won’t be the games, the highs of winning or the determination to right a loss. It certainly won’t be broncos and conditioning stints. The thing that the very best professionals and the most amateur players alike will point to is the camaraderie of the club house. It’s that close bond that led to Aaron Beesley founding Rugby Against Cancer .

If you look around the teams in the Premier 15s you’ll see the squads are full of talent, not just from England but across the UK and further afield too. In particular the wealth of Scottish and Welsh talent plying their trade across the league has often given rise to idle conversation about whether they could add whole teams to the competition in future.