Women’s rugby’s first test century

2022 has been a special year in the history of women’s test rugby.

Back in June the game celebrated the 40thanniversary of the first women’s test match, with the Netherlands returning to Utrecht to host a special celebratory test in what was also the city’s 900thbirthday; the Six Nations was confirmed as standing alone in its new springtime home in the calendar; Africa launched its first true continental championship; South America took its next step on the way to its first championship; and over 34,000 people attended the final of a memorable World Cup in New Zealand.

Hong Kong and Kazakhstan will also take the number of teams playing test rugby in 2022 to 40 – another record. Despite this, for the first time since 2017, there no country made its test debut in the year.

After France took on the Netherlands in Utrecht, in June 1982, the game took nearly 12 years to record its 100thtest, which also co-incidentally featured France, this time against Ireland in the 1994 World Cup. The next 100 took another four years. Now we have seen 100 tests in just 294 days.

Without COVID the game might have reached this landmark all the sooner. After a difficult few years when the worldwide explosion of sevens seemed to threaten the very existence of the fifteens game, 2019 saw 78 test matches played by 36 teams – the largest number of tests ever in a non-World Cup year, and just one fewer than the 79 tests in 2006 – the record before this year. That record would unquestionably have been surpassed in 2021, but the pandemic brought the game to a near standstill with just 20 tests in 2020, recovering to 51 last year.

Now the game has reached three figures for the first time, and is due to end the year on 101 as Hong Kong will play Kazakhstan twice as the 2022/23 Asian Championship gets underway.

It is a landmark moment for women’s test rugby – but it may not be a record that lasts long. From next year will see the first edition of a new, annual, worldwide competition – WXV – which will see more teams playing more tests than ever before, and test championships on every continent, apart from North America, though even they are on target to see the return of test rugby in the next few years.

100 tests in a year may soon be a regular occurance, but the game can reach the number for the first time just once. And that will be on Saturday in Hong Kong.