Journey continues for top female rugby coaches
With more and more women and girls playing rugby union in England, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) has been intent on improving gender diversity and increasing the number of high-performance female coaches.
The top coaching qualification, the England Rugby Performance Coaching Award, designed for those working in the elite game, is now held by 14 female coaches, 11 of them former England players. Former England scrum half and now England Women’s U20 coach, Amy Turner is currently part of the programme.
The pioneer was current Wasps Ladies Director of Rugby Giselle Mather, who had to take her baby daughter Roxy on one coaching course because she was breast feeding. Roxy is now 19 and sons Jasper and Barney are 20 and 17. It was a decade before former England scrum half, Jo Yapp, joined the most qualified coaches and it’s been 13 years since Giselle qualified.
While she is delighted that the number is now 14, she says it is opportunities rather than qualifications which are needed to make the difference for how far our top female coaches can go in the game.
“Toby Booth gave me an opportunity to work with the Academy at London Irish,” she says. “He didn’t care that I was female just that I was good enough. I struggle to understand why there is still not one single female coach in any Premiership coaching team. I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing, or whether the game is not ready for it, but it takes diversity in a coaching team to unlock the performance blocks and help the athletes reach their full potential.”
Giselle’s charges at London Irish included the likes of Alex Corbisiero, Joe Cokanasiga, Jonathan Joseph, and Marcus and Anthony Watson. At Teddington Antlers, she led the squad in a 63-game unbeaten run. She coached the first Women’s Barbarians side, and was England Women’s backs coach as well as leading the England Women’s U20s for three unbeaten seasons. Now coaching Wasps Ladies for the second time, she led them to back-to-back Premiership titles in 2003 and 2004 and recently to the Allianz Premier 15s semi-finals.
Her coaching credentials are outstanding and, as a player, she earned 34 England caps and a Rugby World Cup win in 1994. But Giselle says that a glass ceiling still remains to be shattered.
“I am really 100% encouraged to see that we now have 14 women qualified at the top level,” she says. “Younger lads really don’t care, don’t blink an eye, if they have a female coach as long as she is good. Now to break the glass ceiling we need to push creating opportunities. Coaching is about getting the best out of human beings, not just rugby players. It’s technical and tactical, but you also need to understand the problems players have and what pressure can do to their performance.
“What we really need now is for someone in the Premiership to give a woman the coaching opportunity at that elite level. Amy Turner’s journey will be different from mine because we have already proved female coaches know what they are talking about, we’ve done that work already. The question is when will there be opportunities at Premiership level and who is brave enough to offer that change.”
Amy Turner, England Women’s U20’s Head Coach and Red Roses scrum half from 2004 - 2012, has 59 caps, competed at two World Cups for 15s and one World Cup in 7s. On retiring from playing she was an assistant coach with Harlequins Women, was part of the England Women’s Pathways, working with U18s and U20s before her full time coaching role with the U20s. She is also head coach for Hackney men.
Currently, Amy is among 17 coaches on the England Rugby Performance Coaching Award. Due to covid, they have not been able to get together as a group. This matters because it was Giselle’s time on that course with Toby Booth that saw him impressed with her capabilities and offer the Exiles position.
“The most enjoyable part of coaching is supporting your players, seeing them move up over a period of time, changing and developing both as individuals and athletes," says Amy. "I love working with Hackney men who are playing simply for the love of rugby, that’s very humbling.
“Of course, my ultimate ambition is to work in a high performance rugby environment at the highest level I can. Giselle is absolutely right that the opportunities are needed in the Premiership and why they haven’t yet been given is an interesting question. Diversity in a group of coaches is essential. We need different people from different backgrounds and with different experiences. There’s a whole science on diversity, the benefits are proven. In any working environment diversity is a huge positive.
“I think it will change for women but I look forward to a day when it’s not about male coaches or female coaches, not about the men’s game and the women’s game, but about equal opportunities for quality coaches.”
