Corby’s S&L rugby club field female team for first time in 88-year history

The teams fielded at the weekend were S&L RFC’s first ever female rugby team in their 88-year history, and were set up following an idea that was had at a committee meeting last December.

Tonia Shalgosky, club secretary said: “We started with an idea at Christmas time last year and then we put some things into motion.

“We ran four consecutive taster sessions in March and in the first week had nine ladies that attended, the next week we doubled it, and we just steadily grew.

“We’re so far up to just over 25 ladies and yesterday (Sunday) we played our first games of rugby.”

The team is part of the ‘Inner Warrior Series’ which has been set up by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to try and get more women into the sport.

Tonia added: “Everybody was amazing, everybody really just got stuck in and just put everything we’ve been learning over the last six or seven months into practice, and played actually some really good rugby.

“We’re all crying about it this morning because we all feel like we’ve been in a car crash but we all played some really good rugby.

“Apart from three or four players within our team, everybody else is brand new to rugby - which I think speaks volumes for the club to be able to persuade people in their late 20s/early 30s to get involved in such a high impact sport, it’s huge.”

The team play their first home games at S&L later this month on Sunday, October 20 and are hoping for a big turnout.

The team are also on the lookout for more players and would encourage any women to join.

Tonia said: “The dream would be to filter out and have a girls section because at the moment we can play mixed rugby up until secondary school - so once we have girls who hit secondary school, they then have to leave our club - it’s a real shame.

“So we’re hoping that we can start from the top and we’re looking at a development plan around girls rugby.”

For more information about the team, visit the S&L RFC Facebook page.