Gather round everyone and let me share with you a story of depressing statistics!
Last year, I started a little spreadsheet to try and track the movement of women coaching in rugby. It’s been a pervasive narrative that there simply aren’t women coming through the pipeline - the ol’ “Ladies, you need to lean in!” trope. So I wanted to know how true this was and understand where the roadblocks were.
I went back three seasons, starting in 2021. Trawling through old Facebook pages and press releases, to assemble a list of names . These are the women who have held coaching positions at various points on our high performance ladder, from the Farah Palmer Cup up. From what I’ve been able to gather, we have had 30 women in and out of these environments over the last four years.
This week, I have updated this spreadsheet with the latest data from across our 13 provinces, four Aupiki franchises and our Black Ferns team. I can now share with you that of the 68 coaching positions on offer across these 18 teams, women only hold 16 of them. And of these 16 posts, only four are women in the head coach position. More depressingly still, this marks a decrease on last year. With five of the 18 teams now not having a single women in their coaching set up.
GRIM.
Dig a little deeper and there are some worrying trends in the individual teams themselves. Northland Rugby being one such example, who from a distance appear to be doing a good job. The more you look at it though, the more questions appear.
They are one of the few teams who have consistently appointed women as head coaches. Three of the four last seasons have featured a women in the top job. However, it is never the same women. As they have cycled through four different head coaches over the last four seasons. Suggesting something may be a miss in their setup.
Yes, I learnt how to make moving graphs on Flourish and I’m obsessed.
And unfortunately, I’m here to tell you it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better next season. Aupiki is currently where women are doing the best. Making up 46% of the coaching staff this season. But both Crystal Kaua and Victoria Grant have signalled they are stepping away from Aupiki next year. The Hurricanes Poua have already replaced Grant with a man (albeit one I do like) and we await news from the Manawa franchise.
What is playing out here in Aotearoa is part of a global trend. England’s PWR was rocked last week with the shock departure of Giselle Mather. She’s left the Ealing Trailfinders just a month out from season kick off. Mather is a highly respected and decorated coach. The club arguably traded off her reputation to gain a spot in the PWR and we are now to believe “there is a difference in philosophy”.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that that difference is rooted in sexism. The old boys of that club seemingly unable to hold on to top flight women. Like Mather, Lou Meadows lasted for just two seasons with the club before being moving into the England coaching set up. They’ve appointed a bloke into the head coach role now, so what’s the bet he sticks around for more than two? It’s more than likely as his current coaching CV means this appointment is a heck of an opportunity.
Mather leaving adds to the downward trend of women head coaches across the PWR. She is the third women to vacate her role since the close of the last season. Oh to have access to all of those exit interviews. Chances are they may echo some of the research assembled below.
The reality is right now, men in coaching have twice the opportunity for their development. Being able to pursue a career in both the men’s and women’s game. Meanwhile, women are still struggling to be valued within their own part of the game, before even thinking of trying to coach men.
And even if they are given a coaching role within our sport, they face prejudice from their clubs and limited development time given the slow roll out of professionalism for their players and our relatively truncated seasons.
Much is made of the pioneering players who are bridging this transitional moment in our sport. But the same bootstrapping is required of our coaches. It’s HARD to lead a team when the reality of your players is so disparate. You’re building the plane while flying it, teaching professionalism while establishing it.
Their visibility is a double-edged sword. Meaning everything to those aspiring to follow their path and watched intently by their detractors for any misstep. I’ve seen it within our player groups, who hold our women to standards they’ve never seen a man in coaching clear.
You can’t just wish all of this better. There is a century of tradition to overcome and cannot ask coaches to simply apply their way through it. We’ve asked the coaches to lean in so far that they are toppling over. We need to intervene now to hold our women in place. We need quotas.
I want 100% women head coaches in the Farah Palmer Cup by Rugby World Cup 2029. I want a 2:1 women to man coaching ratio in Aupiki as soon as next season. I want a paid coaching intern within the Black Ferns environment yesterday. I want women replaced with women across the board so that no ground is lost. I want priority placement of women on all coaching courses. I want a scaling up of the Ako Wāhine programme to deliver this.
I want, so desperately, to stop writing about the decline.
With you,
Alice