Between FPC and the Commonwealth Games there is the most wāhine rugby ever being televised this weekend. The fact that this has just happened, without any great headline heralding the arrival of women’s sport is actually kind of cool! It just goes to show how overdue the coverage of our sport was that you almost can’t remember a time before it was on TV.
So let's jump in a time machine! This was our match schedule for the 2016 provincial season. Note the * on the match vs Counties Manukau, this indicated that this game would be televised and at that time we got one match per season on the telly.
Our Wellington Pride match schedule from 2016. This was the year I missed out on our semi final against Counties Manukau, who went on to win their inaugural title, because Sanita Levave split my knee open in a tackle at practice.
This decision was largely driven by what men's teams were up to cause the same crew could be used for both. This meant it was a bit of a roll of the dice as to whether this match would be the best advertisement for our comp. Often some pretty dry or one sided matches were the only ones shown that week.
As a player, you really wanted to be sure not to pick up any injuries, to hope that a decent match would be televised and that you would make the playing 23 to maybe have some footage of your playing for your province.
Last year, Sky committed to streaming all of them. Choice! This year that's continued and I LOVE being able to watch the FPC for the same reason I have previously enjoyed NPC. It's where new talent breaks through and home town heroes are made.
But this weekend, we get the cherry on top, with the Black Ferns 7s in action at the Commonwealth Games.
Our rugby wāhine, across multiple levels of the game, will be on display this weekend and you are spoilt for choice. This is also important cause for so long, our players in the black jersey was all we saw. Those outside the women’s rugby community didn’t really get to feel that same sense of pride you get from seeing a player from your region rise through the ranks and break through onto the international stage.
And I just think that this moment is really cool and needs to be acknowledged.
With you,
Alice
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