A Tale of Two Unions

Competition at the top in women’s international rugby is getting more intense, almost by the day – and it is going to ramp up. With a World Cup and an expanded Sevens circuit in 2014, leading on to what promises to be long and closely-fought battle for just 12 Olympic places in 2015, and then the Games themselves, anything that can give one Union an advantage is being seized upon.

Ireland showed the way last year. A controversial reform effectively reduced the top club league to a three month tournament, ending in December, freeing their internationals to concentrate on the national teams. Within months the Girls in Green had achieved a Six Nations Grand Slam and qualification for the World Sevens Series – the latter a remarkable result for a national team with barely 12 months experience of the shortened game.

Causation or coincidence, conclusions can certainly be drawn from Ireland's experience.

Next season Club rugby at the top will look very different in England and France but while the changes in one country have gone through with barely a murmur, in the other the result is near open revolt.

In England the Women's Premiership will be completed by the end of January, after which there will be a new cup competition. However, rather than a desire to release international players for the World Cup, the main motivation for change (proposed and introduced by the RFU Competition Review Group which is chaired by Carol Isherwood) is to increase playing opportunities for non-internationals.

At present there is little competitive club rugby at the top level in England during the Six Nations, as playing on without international players would affect results. The new structure offers a sensible programme of tough matches for non international players who are often significantly affected during this period without endangering any club's final league position.

The reform is the result of consultation and is being introduced as a pilot - and is in marked contrast to reforms being introduced in France.

Outwardly these seem very similar to the English restructuring. They were first announced at a meeting of the FFR at the end of June. However, as wereported last month- unlike in England - the French reforms were introduced without any consultation with women’s clubs or players.

Also unlike in England, the main motivation for the changes in France is the strengthening national teams - and one of the main complaints is the effect they will have on non-internationals.

The timeline is similar to that of England and will reduce the league stage of the Top 10 from an 18-game league, running from September to May, to an eight game competition, to be completed by the end of December. There will be knockout play-offs in the spring, however once knocked out of the competition a club’s season will be over. For two clubs this will mean no rugby at all between 15th December and mid-September 2014, while for even the best clubs spring rugby will consist of at most five or six games when they are used to twice that number - including having to deal with a two and a half month gap in fixtures after the quarter-final stage.

It is also worth mentioning that in France there is no sub-national representative rugby. No regional, provincial or divisional competitions. The only rugby available outside of the clubs is in the national squads.

From 2014/15 the reforms will be expanded down the leagues. The Top 10 will become a Top 8, the second division will be replaced by two eight team leagues, and the third and fourth tiers will be combined to create a single tier with six 7-team leagues, followed by promotion and relegation play-offs. Overall nearly 70 clubs will be directly affected – some promoted, many moved down and some dropping out of the national structure altogether into the world of regional rugby. Every player will see their rugby season reduced in length by 20-25%.

The result was initially shock, and then anger as the FFR refused to discuss the new structure. After letters to the FFR from the clubs resulted in no response, all of the Top 10 clubs came together witha petition– with currently approaching 4,000 names (equivalent to nearly a third of all registered players). Signatories include many current internationals - both 15s and 7s - such as Sandrine Agricole, Safi N'diaye, Elodie Poublan, Chloé Pelle, Sandra Rabier, and Julie Billes, as well as senior coaches and regional presidents.

This has resulted in a reply from FFR explaining the changes and reasons for them, but no compromise or hint of any possible change.

When pressed on the value of the reforms, the clubs are not opposed in principle. The need for reform has recognised for years.The sprawling French club season, running from September to May, or sometimes even June, has been expensive to participate in (France is not a small country for amateur teams to criss-cross at weekends) while doing little for the national team other than exhaust players and infuriate national coaches. The answer to the puzzle about why the world’s oldest and (with the possible exception of England) largest women’s rugby nation has not won the Six Nations for a decade, has never achieved anything better than third place in the fifteens World Cup, and consistently languishes behind far smaller and less well resourced nations at sevens is almost certainly due, at least in part, to the huge pressure that the club season has imposed.

But it is the way the FFR have gone about the changes that has angered so many in the Club game. No warning, no discussion, no consultation. While the top 10% of players in national squads may benefit, 90% will lose out and with no meaningful rugby for nine months of the year many clubs fear closure as sporting women move away, and coaches find alternative homes for their talents. Club rugby in France has a significant following – for some clubs it even generates a small but important source of revenue – which they fear will be lost.

A meeting between the clubs and the FFR has been proposed for 26th August, but the FFR have already said that they will not change their plans, and fixtures for the league phase – starting on 14/15th September - have now been published. If there remains no compromise the question for the Top 10 clubs will be - what next?