Spain plan for their busiest ever season

Following an agreement between the Spanish Rugby Union - theFederación Española de Rugby(FER) - and the regional government forCastilla and León, the Spanish women's team will be based at the Rio Esgueva Sports Centre in Valladolid throughout the season. The new sports facility will be the "semi-permanent"home for 18 players who will be based there from October to July next year.

Players and officials from the Spanish team, the president of the FER, and senior regional politicians attended a ceremony to launch the training camp this week - including Alicia Garcia, the Minister of Sport for the region, who said that it is "an honor to have the national women's rugby in our community - we are going to be lucky enough to have the best global and domestic rugby here in Castilla and León." She saw the agreement "as part of the promotion of the women's sport by the regional government."

The president of the FER,Javier González Cancho, was somewhat more pragmatic, saying that "this agreement will help us reduce costs and focus investment on improving the preparation and performance of the players throughout the season."

After a remarkably busy - and successful - season last year, which saw Spain finish fourth in the Rugby World Cup Sevens (the best ever performance by a European team) and also qualify for the Rugby World Cup in Paris next year, 2013-14 promises to be even busier.

As well as the World Cup in August, Spain will also be a core team in the Women's Sevens World Series, meaning they will play in six major IRB tournaments during the year, plus the usual FIRA and other invitational tournaments. In addition, their junior team will be representing Europe in the Nanjing Youth Olympics, also in August 2014.

In preparation for the World Cup Spain will also be welcoming Italy, Wales and Ireland for test matches at their Valladolid facility, while they continue to try to organise a pre-World Cup warm-up tournament.