Rise and shine, Ugandan rugby! Let’s dive into this week’s Kawowo Rugby Switch.
Women’s rugby waits, and waits.
This week delivered great news for women’s rugby globally, with World Rugby committing to delivering the Rugby World Cup in 2022 and also launching a new aligned calendar and competition starting in 2023.
But back at home in Uganda, the women’s rugby fraternity continue to wait for their opportunity to return to action as the men’s competition enters the third week.
More critically, only the men in the premier league have been able to return to competitive rugby. All the other competitions that were planned for by the Uganda Rugby Union are yet to kick off. This includes women’s rugby nationwide, the men’s regional championships which have been postponed to a later date and schools rugby that awaits normal academic programs to resume in the country.
There was some glimmer of hope on the opening weekend of the 2021 season with the Mbale Eagles playing a game between themselves in Eastern Uganda. But nothing more than just hope on the outside.
What this could mean for women’s rugby
- Just like the men, women’s rugby continues to suffer a huge turnover rate the longer the sport stays on the sidelines. Which is not desirable for us at all. We are certainly going to lose a great deal of talent to the effects of this pandemic.
- The mid-year international window is expected to get underway in June with the Elgon Cup and the Rugby Africa Women’s international tests later in July. For a country that played its first games in 2019 after years on the sidelines, the progress that had been made could be washed away with no competitive rugby locally to get the ladies set for test rugby.
After the Switch:
- World Rugby launched a new aligned international calendar and global competition known as WXV that will see 16 of the best rugby nations play amongst each other in a bid to boost the women’s game.
- The Rugby World Cup will be played in 2022 after World Rugby confirmed its postponment due to COVID-19. World Rugby also endorsed work to develop and fund a Rugby World Cup 2021 high performance preparation and competition programme with a £2million package.
- Former Lady Rugby Cranes Sevens captain and head coach Helen Koyokoyo Buteme expanded her portfolio as the leading S&C coach in the country when she was added to the Cricket Cranes technical team.
What do you think about women’s rugby in Uganda? Let’s have a discussion in my inbox by replying this mail or reaching me personally via ernest@kawowo.com
