The hard work of various role players who have built up women’s rugby at club level under the jurisdiction of the Blue Bulls over the past few years, seems to be starting to bear good fruit these days.

Pioneers such as Riaan van der Merwe at Tuks and Diane Fourie at Harlequins have been developing women’s rugby at club level for years, while their clubs also served as a source of new talent for the Blue Bulls’ provincial team and the Springbok women’s teams – in both codes (7’s and 15-man).

Meanwhile, the Bulls’ management has bought into the goals of both SA Rugby and World Rugby to develop women’s rugby and start operating it at a professional level.

To achieve this goal the Blue Bulls Company even created a position they call the ‘Special Projects Manager’. Former Springbok flanker, Thando Manana, was appointed in this position. His assignment is “to structure a way to align the Blue Bulls Company with SA Rugby and World Rugby’s strategic objectives to professionalize women’s rugby and to establish the Bulls as the trendsetters in South African professional women’s rugby”.

In conjunction with this development, the Bulls became the first rugby union in South Africa to contract a group of women players, which means that the Bulls also have a professional women’s team from 2023. The team will officially be known as the Daisies.

Under Manana’s management, this women’s team will be managed in a High-Performance setting at Loftus Versfeld.

Meanwhile, the interest in women’s rugby is growing unprecedentedly at club level.

According to Diane Fourie, chairman of Blue Bulls women’s rugby, the BBRU started with baby steps in 2021 when only four clubs participated in the inaugural BBRU women’s club tournament. Later, two more clubs joined the ranks. This year, however, the Blue Bulls’ women’s club league will boast at least ten teams.

Clubs that have already entered women’s teams for the local league are: Atteridgeville/SAPS; SMU Buffaloes; Harlequins; Mamelodi; Stanza; Northam Rhinos; Pretoria Rugby Club; Tuine Grizzlies; Correctional Services and Noordelikes.

Meanwhile, Tuks will also enter a women’s team for the first women’s league as part of the Varsity Cup tournament, which will kick off this year.

All these developments therefore send a clear message to young girls and women who would like to play rugby – the opportunities are now plentiful and the best among the best can even pursue rugby as a profession these days.

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