Your view: What would you change?

Join in the debate on suggesting what you would like to see change in the game on Twitter

Dana Teagarden (former international referee)I expect to see acceleration in the professionalism of the management and development structures for referees.  Without any intention of denigrating anyone's hard work and dedication to date, my observation is that the speed of change in the professionalism of the team management and coaching structures for players has to date far out-paced the evolution of these structures for the referee.  This was the case when Tier 1 men's 15s went professional in the mid-90s and it happened with women's 7s as well.  Men's 7s enjoyed a longer "incubation" period with the commercial development of the World Series over time as well as a larger pool of candidates from which to choose from but have had their challenges.This deficit lies not just in any one level or country but is observable in broad cross-section in out-dated attitudes from referee managers towards women & 7s  (quotes I've heard include "awww, 7s is just for fun" or "it's just women anyway, why is that ref so serious?!? What a b*tch") as well as in the comparative evaluation of on-pitch performance. It is exacerbated by the trend of referee management treating coaches and players as "hostile" parties and not understanding why it is essential to communicate a shift in interpretation in good time so that teams can adjust their patterns positively.  We are all stakeholders in the game and there are islands of good practice.  I expect to see more connectivity and depth develop in the structures.This is not a gender issue.  The argument for (or against) referees who happen to be female is a red herring.  Dedication, commitment and passion are gender neutral attributes.  We've seen that with the development of players who happen to be female - pick the right athlete and support them with the right infrastructure.  The same is true of referees.

Liat Geller (Israel international player)

Rugby is indeed a global game with ever increasing numbers and new countries joining. The list of issues the IRB and the regional associations can tackle to bring our level up is long and almost never ending. The one thing that has really been bugging me in the past couple of years is the feeling that the IRB/Regional associations are treating the lower tier tournaments as a 'necessary evil'.

Last year Fira AER presented a new format for the lower divisions where they played a 1 day, 4 game European championship!While the men also have the nations cup games, for almost all the women involved this tournament is there one and only chance at high level tournament, and a lot of them felt belittled by this decision. The thing is, if we continue focusing our funding and best officials and directors on the shiny sparkly Tier 1 & 2 nations – it will serve to further increase the gap between tiers and furthermore, we run the risk of turning rugby in general but women's rugby in particular to polo – a shiny cool Olympic sport with very few participating nations. Treat the smaller nations with the same respect as the bigger nations get!

Patricia Garcia (Spanish international player)

I think women's rugby promotion should start by working with the media: newspapers, sport magazines and TV mostly. Giving a good image of rugby like the amazing sport it is that everyone can play and with important values to integrate into society and education is vital. Showing women's rugby to the media, will make our competitions become a public interest, each time more women and girls will discover rugby as players, referees, coaches, managers..

At the same time I would hope that national boards develop the sport and private business get interested on growing with rugby and identifying with the values and women´s rugby image. That would mean an awesome achievement and will make women´s rugby progress at all levels.Helen Buteme (Ugandan international player)I would change the amount of money available to women’s rugby teams. In Uganda, the men get most of the available money despite the women having performed better than them.

Of course, we are told that men’s rugby sells more and is more popular and that is tied to sponsorship but again I think it’s about the right marketing and visibility of the women’s game. Everyone likes to be associated with success no matter the gender or age group or sport that achieves it. That extends to CAR (the African governing body) – CAR has a 7s and 15s competition for the men while the women just have the 7s, the under 19 boys have a 15s competition while the under 19 girls have no competition at all. With the dearth of fixtures, both 7s and 15s, available to female players it is very hard for people to stay motivated or committed to play rugby or to ensure that they are at their peak during competitions which makes it hard and for the game to grow in Africa such that African teams can be truly competitive instead of just participatory with other teams from other continents.

Sue Day (former England captain)

If I could change one thing I would make our game better - much better - at marketing itself.

This is an issue dear to my heart being both a very proud former player and captain of England and a very proud current trustee of the Women's Sport Trust, a charity dedicated to raising the profile of women’s sport.

As England captain I was used to us winning tournaments unheralded. Or, indeed, losing them. We lost the World Cup final in 2002 to New Zealand and one nameless broadsheet newspaper reported the score (no match report) as AUSTRALIA 19, England 9. That's how much attention they were paying.

And you might ask: does it really matter since we don't play for the money or for the glory? But, of course, it does it matter. We also play to inspire the Nolli Watermans and Emily Scarratts of the future - those players who pick the ball up at a young age and develop into the most exquisite, instinctive rugby players. And how can those players be inspired by us if they don't even know we exist?

So to inspire girls to play rugby we need coverage of rugby, played by women.  And sport gets coverage if we get a few simple ingredients right: 1) sponsors, whose funding can take a sport and transform it from mere sport to entertainment; 2) media editors who will give it air time and column inches; and 3) the sport itself- a slick, entertaining product that is attractive to sponsors and media alike.

And number three is the bit that we in the game can most easily influence.  The better we market the game (and the better we package it up and feed it to the media and sponsors), the more people will see us play.  And that, quite simply, is the single most effective way of inspiring more girls to play our beautiful game.

Fiona Coghlan (former Ireland captain)

There are so many things I think that can be improved on. I am not sure about funding and poltical implications,  but Unions been made accountable for  women's development from grass roots up and to ensure regular competitive games. This is where the regions can play a part providing competitions and ensuring pressure on members countries to attend.It is probably logistically not possible, but in order to maximise players playing 15s and 7s and help the game to grow, I would love to see the idea of aligning season structures looked at so tournaments don't clash and players get significant rest time.