England Women v French Women

Anyone watching? Great contest with some very impressive skills on display from both sides. 3-0 England.

Yep - not sure about the male ref though ... gave a pen for collapsing a maul against England when the French ball carrier clearly took it down ..

I thought the same...

Hopefully they can beat the French and the ref but he's not making it easy!!

Indeed ... he's made a few odd decisions at the breakdown including letting the French scoop it back when off their feet.

Hopefully the French will tire in the 2nd half as England need more possession - when they get the ball they look more incisive - just keep getting pinged for holding on in the red zone.

Yes! is is Thompson who seems the scythe through in a very entertaining manner?

Still working out who is who

2nd time England should have had a scrum pen but got nothing

Should've had a try there ...

Surely that was offside?  Ball bounced off a French player and gets collected by a player in front ... are they using different laws? or maybe the player has to 'play' the ball for the offence to occur - not sure ...

Finally they crack the French defence

Incredible defence there by England...

Not sure on the offside rule regarding your previous comment. The French definitely got an advantage so seems unfair...

Both defences have been pretty impressive on the whole but especially England in the 1st half ..

Indeed, the French must have been wondering what they had to do.

I'm running slightly behind on record so have just seen that passage of play - brilliant last ditch tackle

Yes, amazing wasn't it?

Superb - if the French had scored then it could have been a very tense ending ...

Great result - final score a little unfair on the French who played well but England's defence was remarkable ...

Yes, great stuff, France played really well but England had the grit to hold them out. Agree that the last try was very harsh on the French.

We planned our family holiday around going to the final, so watched the game from a pub in a small Irish town. Slightly relieved that England will be playing when we head up to Belfast... But what a great game and very tense.

That's worked out well for you Poorfour - hope that you enjoy the match on Saturday.

I just hope the NZ women don't have the same concept of dirty play being acceptable as their male counterparts and that the final doesnt see any red cards.

Gwlad wrote:I just hope the NZ women don't have the same concept of dirty play being acceptable..

Why don't you watch their matches to decide that question for yourself?

I thought both sides were incredible, the woman's game ahs come on so far in the last few years. It was full on and brutal, the sort of thing I would expect to see in an England - France 6N game.

Hunter, Matthews and Packer were something else, instant acceleration from stocky bodies and no little skill in going onto contact either tackling or ball carrying, got the better of the much bigger and more vaunted French backrow. Add that to Sarah Bern who at 20 looks capable of taking on most male props and carried like BV.

Really looking forward to Saturday.

It was probably the most enjoyable game of Women's rugby I've ever watched, although I put that mostly down to the fact I like tight attritional rugby. The highlight for me was England's superb commitment in defence, from the first minute to the last minute. Really good stuff.

I am finding it interesting/frustrating how many viewers insist on comparing it to the men's game though. For me, if it's going to succeed it needs to stand as its own product. If you persist in holding this game to the same standards as another, there are areas in which it will inevitably fall short and that is then damaging PR for casual fans. If you've convinced someone to watch a game of Women's rugby on the strength of "It's just like the men's game!" they are going to be expecting that and may well be disappointed when they find out it's not. I've seen quite a bit of things like ...

[quote="" Add that to Sarah Bern who at 20 looks capable of taking on most male props and carried like BV.[/quote]

Sarah Bern is 5 feet 7 and 14 stone. So the above statement just isn't, and crucially will never be, true. IMO we'd be much better served extolling the ACTUAL virtues of the women's game, or, if you insist on comparing them, celebrating the differences.

It isn't just limited to Rugby either, football has a similar problem. I've seen it from male and female fans, but also from the players. They themselves also seem preoccupied with trying to copy the men's game instead of developing their own identity. If I was in charge of trying to develop women's football, the first thing on my agenda would be to say, "ffs, whatever you do, DON'T copy the men. They have an awful product" Instead they are diving all over the place and trying to con the ref (read cheating) just like in the male game. Things like that represent a massive missed opportunity for me and I think it stems from Players/coaches/governing bodies/fans trying to emulate the men's game.

What do people think?

Should the women be trying to emulate the men?

Should fans compare the two?

Interesting post cascough. I think there's a balance to be struck. The natural audience for rugby of any kind is rugby fans, so there's some merit in attracting people by pointing out the similarities. But as you say, it isn't and never will be exactly like the full professional men's game.

I tend to think of - and bill - the women's game as being like the U20s or U18s. It's a bit less physical, but often the skill levels on display are higher, precisely because a purely physical approach isn't viable.

I come at it from a two different tangents.

 You can view it like the difference between mens and womens tennis, the men play a much more powerful, faster game, but does not offer the length of rallys that the women provide through their softness and the  playing of touch tennis.but two very enjoyable forms of the one sport.

Another angle is comparing it to the difference between Formula 1 and Indy cars, sure two very fast versions of a racing car but many differences.

 Womens Rugby offers an alternative within the same code.

Poorfour wrote:Interesting post cascough. I think there's a balance to be struck. The natural audience for rugby of any kind is rugby fans, so there's some merit in attracting people by pointing out the similarities. But as you say, it isn't and never will be exactly like the full professional men's game.

I tend to think of - and bill - the women's game as being like the U20s or U18s. It's a bit less physical, but often the skill levels on display are higher, precisely because a purely physical approach isn't viable.

I'd still disagree with the part in bold, but I do agree with the part afterwards.

Looking at the Women's game, I agree that they favour skills over brawn, and more often that not the men favour brawn over skills but to me that doesn't therefore mean that the thing the women favour is done better than the thing the men favour and vice versa. I don't think we should be comparing the two and holding the women to the same standards as the men. They are not professional for one thing. But more than that it leads to is a sort of disingenuous give and take situation whereby the women are unfairly compared to the men and will come up short in something like physicality (which is just a battle they are never going to win), and so people then overstate something about the women's game to balance it up (eg they are more skillful).

To me, them placing a higher emphasis on skills should be enough of a selling point for a lot of people. They don't have to be as skillful or more skillful than the men to be successful, I think the comparison is irrelevant.

It's a sensitive issue, which is probably why people feel the need to make out the respective games are on an equal footing, but If the game is going to succeed, I'd be trying to carve my own path.

cascough wrote:

Poorfour wrote:Interesting post cascough. I think there's a balance to be struck. The natural audience for rugby of any kind is rugby fans, so there's some merit in attracting people by pointing out the similarities. But as you say, it isn't and never will be exactly like the full professional men's game.

I tend to think of - and bill - the women's game as being like the U20s or U18s. It's a bit less physical, but often the skill levels on display are higher, precisely because a purely physical approach isn't viable.

I'd still disagree with the part in bold, but I do agree with the part afterwards.

Looking at the Women's game, I agree that they favour skills over brawn, and more often that not the men favour brawn over skills but to me that doesn't therefore mean that the thing the women favour is done better than the thing the men favour and vice versa. I don't think we should be comparing the two and holding the women to the same standards as the men. They are not professional for one thing. But more than that it leads to is a sort of disingenuous give and take situation whereby the women are unfairly compared to the men and will come up short in something like physicality (which is just a battle they are never going to win), and so people then overstate something about the women's game to balance it up (eg they are more skillful).

To me, them placing a higher emphasis on skills should be enough of a selling point for a lot of people. They don't have to be as skillful or more skillful than the men to be successful, I think the comparison is irrelevant.

It's a sensitive issue, which is probably why people feel the need to make out the respective games are on an equal footing, but If the game is going to succeed, I'd be trying to carve my own path.  

I don't think that is quite correct, my previous comments were about just how physical the women are, everything is relative. Bern is as you say 5'7" and 14 stone, much shorter and lighter than a male prop, but she is not playing against a male prop, therefore she can bring just as much effective physicality to the game as her male counterpart. No one is saying that she has the power of Dan Cole, but relative to her female counterparts, she is more physical and seems to relish that side of the game.

Having said that, one of the French props looked like she was pushing 6' and weighing at least 17 stone and Bern had her for breakfast.