Women’s rugby growing in Pakistan

Despite being the home of some very physical traditional sports, rugby is not normally a sport associated with a region where cricket tends to be the dominant force. However things are beginning to change, as we saw with our feature last month of , and ?? with the help of World Rugby??s ??Get into Rugby?? (GiR) programme ?? the game is expanding in Pakistan as well.

Well over 4000 potential players have been introduced to rugby by the programme, and over a third of whom have been women and girls ?? including the captain of the nascent national team 19-year-old Shazia Shabbir, who is now on the coaching team for GIR, motivating the girls from Lodhran and adjoining villages in the Punjab to get into the sport.

The Pakistan Rugby Union (PRU) began the GIR Programme in schools from different cities and Shazia also found her love for rugby as part of the programme in college, where she??s studying for her higher secondary school certificate.

??Rugby is everything! I even know all the Bollywood movies in which there are scenes of people playing rugby,?? the spirited Shazia told Natasha Raheel from The Express Tribune. ??I??ve been playing rugby since 2014 when the PRU coaches came to our college, and although I used to play taekwondo, hockey and volleyball before this, I fell in love with this sport.??

Shazia was one of the first women to participate in the programme from Pakistan and after working tirelessly for almost a year with PRU coach Hassan Mukhtar Shah, she has successfully impacted the rugby scene in Lodhran with the opening of 10 new women clubs in the city.

Shazia??s interest in rugby and her becoming the captain of Pakistan??s national team impressed her friends and family so much that now at least 13 other women from her family have started training in Lodhran.

??I??m a player and a coach, and when our coach gathered all the interested players from Lodhran, I was very surprised that my own cousins and friends showed up at the camp. My khalas [maternal aunts] are playing too,?? said Shazia. ??As for coaching, I??m working with coach Shah at schools and have four teams in Lodhran alone, with 12 girls in each team.??

She added that even though she is lucky to have a family who supports the sport, other girls are not so fortunate as the parents in the city and adjoining villages feel that cultural barriers make it difficult for girls to take part in sports, especially a contact sport such as rugby.

Coach Shah backed Shazia and believes that the programme has been a huge success, adding Pakistan??s first women??s team was formed in Lodhran and competed at a British High Commission event in September where they played for the first time against international teams of British, Canadian, American and Australian players. The tournament received widespread publicity in newspapers across the country

Meanwhile, national coach Shakeel Ahmed, who is conducting the GIR Programme in Lahore, believes that women??s rugby, and the sport among children, has been gaining popularity over the years.

??We??re going to different schools and colleges and I??m happy to see that the teachers and the students have a basic know-how of rugby and are more than willing to participate in the sport,?? said Shah. ??The participation is on the rise and that??s what makes it so interesting.??

Lodhran and Lahore were the first two areas where GiR was piloted, but the game is expanding wider ?? despite the security problems in some areas.

??The increased activity and player numbers is due to the GIR programme which PRU has been running. It has been hugely successful so far,?? said Khuram Haroon, project manager of GiR Pakistan. ??Generally, in some areas of the country we have noticed a sharp fall-off in the amount of sport being played due the ongoing adverse security situation in the region so this rise in rugby activity has been welcomed and appreciated by all concerned.??

Sixty schools across Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad have established rugby programmes, and more are expected to take up the game with the GiR program being used to coach both female and male PE teachers as well as coaching staff and, although the Pakistan women??s team have yet to take part in an international tournament, those behind the development programme are confident that they will soon be ready.