England's dominance was not the result of Ireland's abject failures. Photo: Ashley Crowden/Shutterstock
Latest The England women's team produced one of their best performances in years on Saturday, surpassing Ireland and achieving many of the improvements John Mitchell has sought since his recent appointment as head coach.
The reaction to this victory was, paradoxically, ambiguous. Some applauded the outstanding performance, but others were quick to lament the unevenness of the contest and predicted dire consequences if it continued.
In terms of what can be seen on the pitch, most people who have watched the England men's team have been a rather thin porridge over the last three years, apart from an exceptional performance against Ireland. They can survive a few more wins on a ton of tries before they are put off by their regularity.
What's more, several of the Red Roses' tries were missed due to the Irish team's abject failures. Some of them were superbly crafted and executed. This was especially true when it came to finding the edge of the guard and using the outside center/extreme back channel; The most difficult area to defend in rugby.
Those who find fault with the current situation have no better idea of how to correct the imbalance. Some advocate a tournament in which England, France and one other country play home and away, with the top two teams battling it out in the final and the third-place team playing the winners of a group that includes the other three Six Nations teams.< /p>
If this happened, you would inevitably get a valid complaint from the bottom three parties that they would never achieve parity with the top unions if they were not allowed to play them regularly. The alternative idea of expanding the tournament to two groups of four teams would simply create more inconsistency and invite the same criticism from lower ranked teams.
“The RFU was the first union to support its women”
The opening for women's rugby has been clear for almost a decade, as has been the case for football and cricket. The Rugby Football Union was the first union to support its women, and many unions now struggling to close the productivity gap could and should have done the same. They had — and still have — money, but they chose not to do the same. Either they had no vision or simply ignored the women's game.
Take on England's opponents on Saturday. In 2014, Ireland finished fourth at the World Cup but could only manage to finish eighth three years later, and in 2021 they failed to even qualify for the tournament, a fact that prompted 62 former and current Irish players to write a letter to the Irish government. which said they had lost «all trust and confidence in the IRFU and its leadership following historic failures».
It should be noted that during these periods the Ireland men's team was rising to the top of its world rankings.
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It wasn't until late 2022 that Ireland offered contracts to professional women, and just last year Telegraph Sport reported that irreconcilable conflicts had emerged over some of those contracts following a wide-ranging review. What's even more damning is what a leading Irish rugby figure said at the President's Dinner at Bective RFC in Dublin: «Who cares about women's rugby?»I agree that the Irish Rugby Football Union is making changes to the women's game at professional and amateur level. However, attempting — as some are now doing — to explain away current performance disparities by justifying lower performance is laughable in light of the aforementioned mistakes and misogyny.
The idea that fans will soon turn their backs on women's rugby if the current imbalance will continue, is not supported by the facts. In the long term, tournaments cannot thrive unless there is real competition between the protagonists, but we are a long way from applying that to the current Women's Six Nations.
Proof of this is that in general, attendance and viewing figures for almost all games, regardless of who is participating, are increasing. The crowd at Twickenham for the All-Ireland match was around 49,000, and while that number did not top last year's Grand Slam meeting with France, it is still part of an upward trajectory for pool games.
Remarkably, Twickenham last Saturday A Grand Slam match took place against France. The crowd included a different demographic than at other events, with more families and children present. Part of this is due to lower ticket prices, but you have to have a starting point for someone to get involved in the sport, and as merchandise sales show, these future fans are spending more than the traditional crowd.
Everyone England rugby fans want more competition, but this needs to be achieved by other unions matching the achievements of the RFU, New Zealand and France, as well as bringing women's rugby into the 21st century.
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