Womens XVs Rugby - Global news & Developments

[Canalina]

In a month (March 15) italian rugby will have the new election of the Federation's council. One of the five candidates presents the hypothesis of an italian women's franchise. The candidate, Marzio Innocenti, adfirms to have received this suggestion by a "foreign international circuit" (?) which would be very interested to have an italian team

(paragraph 7 of this interview)
https://ladiesrugbyclub.blogspot.com/20 ... il_11.html

[Canalina]

From Uzbekistan: On February 14 the training camp of our women's rugby team began at the Yangiabad training base, which will last until February 28. This event is aimed at the preparation for the upcoming international tournaments. Also in the city of Antalya (Turkey) in the period March 02-10 joint training camps with women's rugby teams from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey will be held. It should be noted that training camps are held with the participation of a foreign coach-consultant from Kazakhstan, Anastasia Khamova.

http://rugby.uz/2021/02/17/тренировочные-сборы-женской-сборной-2/

Rugby XV? Rugby 7s? I count 21 women in the photo (plus Khamova) so it could be also XV. There are not "upcoming events" involving Uzbekistan in the Asia Rugby calendar; the continental 7s series will be just at the end of the summer

[Thomas]

Going to be adding the 15 matches to the tipping comp, see what reaction I get.
is the Spain v Netherlands the only match with the cancellation of the HK Tournament?

[Armchair Fan]

There is Spain v Russia this weekend.

[Canalina]

Just a note from a news apparead on twitter: the Andorra club (but maybe there are two clubs in Andorra) has a women XV team playing in the Spanish championship. I suppose most of the girls are from Andorra, so I wonder if they ever thought to a national team. As far as I remember Andorra never fielded neither a 7s national team

https://twitter.com/rugbyandorra/status ... 4677668871

No, I was wrong: they finished 5th out of twelve teams in the Euro 7s Conference 2019

[Thomas]

Spain v Netherlands will be in the tipping competition when it re-starts next week.

[Armchair Fan]

Just a note from a news apparead on twitter: the Andorra club (but maybe there are two clubs in Andorra) has a women XV team playing in the Spanish championship. I suppose most of the girls are from Andorra, so I wonder if they ever thought to a national team. As far as I remember Andorra never fielded neither a 7s national team

Their men's side plays in France but their women's side started to play in Catalan regional leagues last season.

[johnbirch]

Just a note from a news apparead on twitter: the Andorra club (but maybe there are two clubs in Andorra) has a women XV team playing in the Spanish championship. I suppose most of the girls are from Andorra, so I wonder if they ever thought to a national team. As far as I remember Andorra never fielded neither a 7s national team

https://twitter.com/rugbyandorra/status ... 4677668871

No, I was wrong: they finished 5th out of twelve teams in the Euro 7s Conference 2019

Andorra also hosted the European Trophy U18s in 2017. They senior team made its debut in 2000 and has reached in the European Grand Prix on occasions.

[Canalina]

Cameroon - The Cameroon XV in stage (the very first one for this country national team?)
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 6384350994

France - FFR published the pools of the upper section of Elite 1. Eight clubs will battle for the title
Montpellier, Blagnac, Lons and Rennes in a pool
Toulouse, Romagnat, Bayonne and Bobigny in the other one

[Canalina]

I wrote that Bobigny qualified to the play-off but instead the spot goes, surprisingly, to Bordeaux

Before the last weekend, Bordeaux was second in the pool with 14 points and Bobigny third with 13 points. Bordeaux lost in Romagnat without conquering points, while Bobigny had a relatively easy game at home with Grenoble; but the game was annulled due to some covid cases in the Grenoble team. The most logic decision appeared to give the second place to Bobigny but FFR opted for the opposite. Rugbyrama wrote an article about this appearing injustice
https://www.rugbyrama.fr/rugby/feminine ... tory.shtml

[Armchair Fan]

So women's professional rugby wants to go the same way as men's professional rugby, limiting opportunities given to players from countries who can't afford professional competitions on their own...
https://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/latest- ... t-imports/

[Canalina]

The Japan Championship (2020? 2021?) played the final game: Mie Pearls defeated Morning Bears ( ) 41-10

Mie Pearls is a club from Yokkaichi, a town in the Mie prefecture near Nagoya. They have also four newzealanders and a fijian player in the team. The Mie prefecture is renomated for the pearls cultivation http://mie-pearls.com/team/player.php
I haven't discovered instead where the Morning Bears come from and why they have that name

Some photos of the final http://en.rugby-japan.jp/2021/02/21/jap ... hip-final/

This match is encouraging also for the asian RWC qualifiers; evidently in Japan rugby is playing, the problem should be in Hong Kong or in the closed borders

There's the whole Pearls v Bears on youtube, they've shown it live last sunday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0NxgywabNY