Sport Comment: World Cup has been huge credibility boost for women’s rugby
IT IS the nature of our sporting world that football is the rich man from whose table every other sport has to eat the scraps, and so amid all the hoopla in the week of the resumption of the Premier League it has been particularly bad luck for English cricket and British athletics that their achievements at the Oval and Zurich haven’t received the attention they undoubtedly merited.
And then there’s women’s rugby, because it may have escaped your attention altogether that yesterday in France, England beat Canada to become world champions for the first time since 1994.
This World Cup as a whole has seen a seismic shift in the credibility and quality of a sport that 20 years ago was derided, with some justification, by observers who criticised its lack of ball skills and physicality, and by some who just didn’t like the idea of it.
These days, if you want big hits, you’ve got them. If you want tactical acumen and nous, you can have that that too. And perhaps the greatest joy of watching the women’s game, is the willingness of backs to run into space and chase an outside break, rather than just bash into the nearest available member of the opposition. The kicking, from both hand and ground, still leaves a bit to be desired, but it can only be a matter of time before a metronomic Wilkinson-esque figure emerges.
The Irish team’s defeat of the previously unstoppable New Zealanders and Canada’s magnificent semi-final win over France were just two examples of outstanding sporting drama played to huge crowds, which announced the arrival, after steady growth over the past two decades, of a sport at ease with itself and its public.
The next stage of its development will be at the 2016 Olympics in Rio when the women’s sevens event will run alongside the male equivalent, which will open us still further the growth and appeal of the sport. There will be several bumps on the road ahead – not least when the first very serious injury occurs on live television, which will prompt all sorts of righteous indignation – but while Louis van Gaal was monopolising the back pages over the weekend, rugby was taking giant strides towards a place in the premier league of women’s sport.