BREAKING BARRIERS
MUCH HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST TWO YEARS AND NZ RUGBY WORLD LOOKS AT THE STATE OF PLAY FOR WOMEN’S RUGBY IN NEW ZEALAND AND WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS.
For the last five years, maybe longer, the fastest growing demographic in terms of participation numbers has been girls aged between five and 12.
Women have been rugby’s meal ticket as it were to achieve the sort of global standing the sport has long craved. The sort where rugby is played all over the world by 10s of millions of people, commands billions of dollars in sponsorship and broadcast revenue and sits not so obviously in the shadow of football.
If all that was a pipe dream a decade ago, it’s not so much now. It is not necessarily a reality waiting to happen but nor is it so unimaginably far away as to be seen as ridiculous.
The biggest driver of change has been the introduction of sevens into the Olympics which of course is for both men and women. Being on the biggest sporting stage of all has not only given rugby, albeit in abbreviated form, a massive boost in profile, it has specifically given women’s rugby in New Zealand a massive boost in profile.
The 2016 Olympics saw the New Zealand male team have a shockingly bad tournament, while the women captured the nation’s hearts. The Black Ferns Sevens were easily the more compelling to watch and their journey to the final, where they were agonisingly beaten by Australia, was classic sporting theatre of the sort that left hundreds of thousands previously uninterested fans as dedicated converts.
The skill levels looked to be higher than they were in the men’s game; the physicality was obvious but not needlessly relentless
