Special feature
Women’s Rugby
The history of women’s rugby in Portugal has had several points of interest. It is a sport that has been played in the versions of XV, X and 7s in which the Divisão de Honra Nacional (Portuguese First Division) has changed format several times. Presently, it is played in the XV format and has seven teams: CR São Miguel, Belas Cascais, MRC Bairrada, SL Benfica, Sport CP, AEES Agrária Coimbra, e Sporting CP. The latter is the title holder as well as the winner of the Portuguese Cup.
Regarding the National Team, until this year, it had only played one match: on the 15th May 1995, they travelled to Heidelberg in Germany for their international debut. The score? 50-0 for the home team. After that, there was a 27-year gap until the next XV match was played – in the meantime, the team focused more on rugby 7s. However, at the beginning of this year, the National Team was integrated in the group B of the Rugby Europe Trophy, together with Belgium and Germany and the results couldn’t be better: two matches (at home), two victories, the last one against Germany by 57-0.
Globally, women’s rugby is growing substantially with more nations looking at professionalisation (France, England, Wales, New Zealand, for example). In 2022, the 6 Nations Championship saw two consecutive matches break the previous attendance record and the match between England and Ireland had almost 16,000 on the stands. Those who could not make the trip to the stadium, watched the matches on the BBC and the ratings were superior to those of the WSL (Women’s Super League (women’s football)). It was the first time that World Rugby held the 6 Nations Championship in different dates than those of the men’s edition and the results were, as we can see, remarkable.
After watching the Portuguese National Team return to rugby XV and after watching live the victory against Germany, Linha de Ensaio decided to do a special feature on the state of women’s rugby in Portugal. In order to get a birds eye vision on the state of the sport in Portugal, we decided to interview six people: Francisco Goes (Vice-President of the Portuguese Rugby Union for women’s rugby), João Telhada (Coordinator for Rugby at Sporting CP), and three National Team players – Mariana Marques (AEES Agrária Coimbra), Márcia Santos (SL Benfica), and Antónia Braga Martins (CR Arcos de Valdevez).
We decided to divide this special feature into three different parts and we will publish them in the next three weeks. Let’s start, like all things, from the beginning:
Part I – Francisco Goes, VP of the Portuguese Rugby Union for Women’s Rugby.
How did you get involved with rugby? How you did you become the VP for women’s rugby at the Portuguese Rugby Union (PRU)?
I first came into contact with rugby when I was 12 years old through one of my classmates that played for Direito. I decided to give it a go, went to a training session and never looked back! Regarding women’s rugby, I’ve been an avid supporter since my wife Sofia, girlfriend at the time, started a team in the Grupo Desportivo dos Pescadores da Costa da Caparica, back in 1995.
Between 2004 and 2007, through a partnership with João Alberty from the Escola Agrária de Coimbra, I became Head Coach of the Women’s National Team and between 2007 and 2010 I was the Assistant Coach for the Women’s team at SL Benfica.
More recently, in June 2021 the President of the PRU, Carlos Amado da Silva, invited me to become the Vice-President for the women’s section, which was an incredible honour. This year has been challenging but extremely rewarding.
How is your typical working day?
Regarding my job, it’s quite normal. I have a degree in Forestry Engineering and work for CELPA, in the paper industry. I try to have a routine and stick to it: I do crossfit three times a week during my lunch breaks and when I take my son Vicente to his rugby practice (he plays for Direito’s u-10 team), I train with the veteran squad that is made of old players and the parents of the current ones.
During my free time, I take care of PRU business and during the weekends, I try to watch matches (especially those of my wife and my daughter who play for the same team). When I’m at home, I try to watch as much rugby as possible, either on TV or YouTube. It doesn’t matter if it’s live, an old match, men’s, women’s, XV or 7s – I watch it all.
How many women play rugby in Portugal?
At this moment, we have 550 players registered in the PRU but our goal is to have close to 600 by the end of the season. This will be a record for us as the previous maximum (in 2019, before COVID) was 515 players registered.
Those players represent 9% of all rugby players in Portugal and it’s very important that, in the near future, we increase the number of women playing the sport.
How do you do that? How do you attract more women to the sport?
I think that the best route is to talk about women’s rugby in schools and clubs. Our recent victories against Belgium and Germany also helped quite a lot to demystify some of the prejudice against women’s rugby.
It is also vital that the big Portuguese clubs get involved in women’s rugby. At the moment, from the men’s First Division, only SL Benfica, São Miguel, Cascais, and Académica (the latter very recently) have a women’s team. One of the biggest clubs for women’s rugby is Sporting CP which has been a leading force for the sport.
It is also important to have women in general involved in the sport: referees, managers, mothers! All of that contributes to the sport’s evolution. With this in mind, the PRU has tried to promote women’s rugby on social media and even created a new image for the Women’s First Division (different from the men’s), broadcasted some key matches through Rugby TV (note: PRU’s own TV channel), and did several pieces on the topic.
In the beginning of this year, it launched a campaign called “We are only missing you!” to attract more women to the sport.
After a break of almost 20 years, the National Team is back in action. What drove you to get it up and running? How did you reach that decision?
During the 2021/2022 season Rugby Europe challenged us, together with Germany and Belgium, to create the Group B of the Women’s Rugby Europe Trophy with the compromise of not having to stick to a particular schedule and to play whenever we could find the time. This seemed a very interesting proposition for a team that was just starting and it allowed us to look at things more strategically without the pressure – in terms of both logistics and money – of competing on setting dates.
After talking with the German and Belgian unions, we realised that they were willing to come to Portugal to play which made things a lot easier.
We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next season but we would like to participate in a more competitive way so that we can get promoted to the Rugby Europe Championship.
What’s the PRU’s budget for women’s rugby?
According to our strategic plan, the budget for 2022 is €182,000 and this is for both the XV and 7s teams. This money pays for all expenses related with all competitions organised by Rugby Europe.
The National Team has played two matches and won them both. What are your objectives for the short and medium term?
These two wins allowed us to go from the 53rd place in the World Ranking to the 39th – in less than a year! In the short term, we want to keep this momentum going and carry on playing matches so that we can give more experience to a core group of 30-40 players. In the medium-long term, the goal is to reach the 20-25th place in the World Ranking, go from the Rugby Europe Trophy to the Championship and think about qualifying for the World Cup.
What are the main challenges that women’s rugby faces at the moment?
Our National Team, after these two victories, has to carry on competing regularly against European teams and, who knows, even from other continents. However, we need more money to do that. It’s important that the government and other sponsors carry on investing in women’s rugby (and in women’s sports in general) as the margin for improvement is huge and there’s a lot more we can do!
How does the PRU work with the clubs? Do you have any programs to develop players?
We have several lines of communication, very direct and informal, between the PRU and the clubs so that we can align goals and work together towards the development of women’s rugby.
The PRU has created bootcamps, for both XV and 7s, where the players with more potential go and train together. We have also organised u18 “gatherings” for up and coming clubs with the goal to improve women’s rugby in general.
