The Blue Bulls provincial women’s rugby team, arguably the strongest women’s side in the country, will take on the visiting English development side in a friendly match at Loftus this Saturday.
Next Saturday history will be made when the first women’s side to represent South Africa, the President’s XV, takes on the English team at Pongola Academy grounds.
This will be the first of several matches against international development sides lined up in preparation for the women’s World Cup in 2006 at a venue still to be announced.
The Blue Bulls match will mark the first time South African women test their skills against foreign opposition. This means that the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) manager of women’s rugby, Mahlubi Puzi, will get an idea of the relative strength of the South Africa women’s game only a week before the
President’s XV match.
”I am pleased that we have reached a stage where we can select a national side,” he said.
None of the squad members for the Pongola game come from last year’s national women’s championship-winning Falcons team. ”Most of the players who played for the Falcons at the Port Elizabeth tournament in August last year are now with the Blue Bulls,” head coach for women’s rugby Thobile Dunjwa explained.
Indeed, four of the eight Blue Bulls players selected played for the Falcons last year, including their scrumhalf and captain Naomi Groenewaldt.
Ranked second behind the Falcons after last year’s championships, KwaZulu-Natal also failed to produce a President’s XV player. The 22 players were selected after a camp in Johannesburg hosted contenders from all over the country.
The Blue Bulls have contributed eight of the 22 players, Eastern Province and Border follow with seven and four players respectively. Boland, Free State and Western Province have one player each. Eastern Province number eight
Nomsebenzi Tsotsobe will captain the South African team.
Speaking at a provincial competition launch in Sandton a month ago, Puzi said club rugby was to be the foundation of women’s rugby activities. ”Players who do not participate in club games will not be eligible for selection to the national squad,” he said. ”Sarfu needs to have a competitive national team in place to compete in the women’s Rugby World Cup in three years’ time.”
On the evidence of a gloomy picture of men’s club rugby painted by officials and club representatives at a workshop in November last year, it becomes difficult to argue with any conviction that the future of women’s rugby in South Africa looks bright.
The Club Aid project, intended by Sarfu to create physical infrastructure for the growth of rugby in historically disadvantaged communities, has not been particularly successful and it is doubtful whether its extension to women’s rugby will make any difference.