74.9 kilos of loveliness

What is 1.63 meters high is 74.79 kilo’s of solid muscle and packs a punch, one Margaret Alphonsi that’s what. Now this is a bit of a thorny issue and one that will split readers into two clear camps, so not wishing to shy away from controversy here goes. I am going to start with a little bit of a history lesson and with one Miss Emily Valentine a pupil at Portora Royal School in Enniskillan, Ireland. In 1887 she played for the schools boy rugby team and became the first recorded female to play rugby.

The first record of an all female rugby team was in 1891 when a team was due to tour New Zealand but had to cancel due to public outcry. In 1895 a French cigarette company issued a cigarette card depicting a female playing rugby and in 1903 there were reports of the first all female rugby match played in France. It was 10 years later before the first game was played in England by all female sides. Then during the First World War in the UK there were many charity matches involving all female sides, presumably because all the males that could play were in the trenches. In fact there was a successful charity game played at the famous Cardiff Arms Park on the 16th December 1917.

So where is all of this heading, well as you can see female rugby has been around for some considerable time and in the mid 90’s I had a hand in it, so to speak. I organised a number of summer rugby festivals and invited a number of female teams to play in their own mini tournament within the festivals. Now this caused some heated debate as there was a clear split, with most people being against the females taking part and just a few, of which I was one, who were in favour of it. The first year was a success and most of the objectors changed their minds. You see the women played a version of the game not played by the men, they did not rely upon sheer brute force, rather they relied on the skills of the game, dare I say ball skills. I mean they passed the ball a lot, kept it alive and it made for a very exciting, skilful game, different and yet the same and above all something worth watching.EndFragment

But sadly today the females have discovered the gym and heavy weights and with that has come a complete change in the way females play rugby. Gone are the graceful skills that made the ball do all the work and in its place has come brute force and aggression. Enter Margaret Alphonsi, who is one of England’s leading female rugby player, she plays flanker and seems to thrive on hitting her opponents has hard as she can and as far into next week as she can. As a result our Margaret has gained quite a reputation, she has won awards, she is starting to get recognised off the pitch, which is good for female sport and rugby in particular. But is it really any good for rugby, we now have a female version of the game which is played in the same way as the male version. But here is the crunch, its not as good, in fact the women’s international sides would struggle against an average male pub side.

So what we have is a load of women trying to be as tough as they can be and producing a second rate inferior product. For me its clear, yes women should play rugby, but they should develop the skill side of things, that way they would be on par with the male players as far as marketability and spectator viewing pleasure is concerned. Yes it would be rugby, but it would be different and watchable and that of course means also financially successful.

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