The feeling of a new season approaching must be intense, with the knowledge that something so demanding of your physical and mental resources is just around the corner. When that season comes in a fledgling competition, the feeling must be also be cut with a sense of trepidation. Or, as Rachael Burford describes the return of the Premier 15s, it’s “that first game where nobody knows anything about anybody”.
As the Premier 15s goes into its second season, it is no exaggeration to say there is a lot in flux. Clubs are not only getting to grips with the competition – a home and away league season followed by a top-four playoff and grand final – but also the conditions placed on them as terms of their participation (largely a commitment to enhance resources available to the women’s game). There are new staff at almost every club, applying new techniques to new players. Add to that a first complete pre-season (last year’s campaign began after a World Cup) and you can see why Burford describes things the way she does.
Matt Banahan: ‘I still don’t know why Bath let me go. It cut me deeply’
Not that the 32-year-old is complaining. The Harlequins captain, and winner of 79 caps for England, is an eloquent ambassador for the competition. “I think last year [the Premier 15s] exceeded a lot of expectations,” she says. “There was much more coverage, on social media, in newspapers, on Sky Sports, the type of things I just don’t think people expected to see. Then there was the competition itself, the level of competitiveness across the board.
“A lot of people said there would be teams that would stand out stronger than the others, but you couldn’t call it. That excitement, along with all the off-pitch stuff as well, exceeded expectations. This season I think people are expecting bigger things again. Everybody just wants to kick on.”
Last season Quins finished runners-up, losing 24-20 to Saracens in the final. Of her team’s ambitions this term, which begins at Gloucester-Hartpury on Saturday afternoon, Burford is up front. “We’re not shying away from anything,” she says. “We want to finish top four, we want to be in a playoff situation and we want to go on and win the Premier 15s. We want to try and push on and win that trophy.”
Conquering the league will be difficult enough, with Saracens adding to their squad by re-signing the fly-half Sarah McKenna and also adding last season’s top try scorer in the Premier 15s, Chantelle Miell. Quins, for their part, have signed the England fly-half Emily Scott and Australian back row Chloe Butler. They also expect great things from their emerging player of last season,the teenage fly-half Ellie Green.
There remains also the challenge of meeting ambitions for the women’s game off the pitch. While the Premier XV has introduced aspects of professionalism – from coaching to sports science – as yet it has stopped short of providing its players with a wage. Discord between England players and the RFU over payments has been seen as a proxy for a broader discussion. In the summer the RFU’s chief executive, Steve Brown, suggested full professionalism could happen as early as this year. Those words are yet to translate into reality.
Since joining the board of the Rugby Players’ Association five years ago, the first woman to do so, Burford has become ever more involved in the governance of her sport. She runs the Burford Academy which provides professional rugby tuition to talented young women, and says she hopes to pursue a career in helping shape the future after she retires (“Everyone who I know who has retired they say ‘you just know’. So I’m waiting for that moment.”)
When it comes to the barriers preventing a fully professional game, Burford is pragmatic. “The obvious one is being commercially viable,” she says. “At the moment we’re not in a position where we’re generating an income. That’s where we need to get to, to make it sustainable for the long term.”
To continue the development of the sport, everyone involved must take responsibility, Burford says. “We need to have a great product. So we need to have good competition which is exciting and drawing people in. The exposure also needs to be there. People need to know about it. It has to be accessible. And I think we need role models. It’s about exposing all of that to as many and as wide as possible and creating more opportunities at youth level in terms of school competition.” She pauses for a moment as one solution pops up. “Getting women’s rugby into the [schools’] curriculum, I mean that would be pretty good.”