“Buzzing” Finland ready for the Swiss

Rugby in Finland rarely makes the headlines, except in features highlighting their men's team's position at the .

What attracts even less notice is the fact that their women's team has always been rather more successful. Their sevens team won the European "B" division last year, and has ambitions to return to the top via this season's "A" tournament in Bergen, while their test team lies in 21st place in - five places above Switzerland, who they play this weekend, and eighty places above the ranking currently held by their men.

"We have a very positive buzz going around Finland??s rugby women at this moment," Sonja tells us. "Numbers are growing, not fast, but definitely growing and in just a few years we??ve come from practically nothing to a good six team?˜domestic series of fifteens rugby. Beginners?? courses are being held all over the country and junior work has just had?˜a good jumpstart with a group of active people running the development programme.

"Our season for the sport is not that long due to weather conditions up here in the north, but we still manage to work out a good 10 games per summer season, plus finals, for the women??s fifteens. We are still struggling a bit to get all games to be full 15-a-side, so for that we still have work to do.

"But the future is full of promise. For the last two years we have also organized a tournament based official sevens series held indoors on astroturf?˜. This year we have already played five of these tournaments, giving is?˜lot of practice - and enjoyment!

Given their recent success at sevens, does Sonja see the future of Finnish rugby as being with test rugby, or?˜the shorter?˜form of the game?

"The ambitious answer is: Both! However it has been officially stated that sevens is the competitive side of ours in the international fields for the time being, and the fifteens national team is developing -?˜both the team and individual players who take the skills and knowledge they gain back to their clubs.

"In truth we cannot do both, not at the moment anyways, as all rugby work in Finland is done on voluntary basis and funding is?˜