Women across England unleash their Inner Warrior
Women across the country have been lacing their boots and taking to the rugby pitch for the Allianz Inner Warrior programme
Witham RUFC hosted a women’s development festival in November after they had a fixture cancelled, which saw players from five teams come together for a tournament played over two pitches.
Witham Ladies only formed last season and are playing in their first year of competitive rugby. A league game fell through, so the club contacted the local Inner Warrior Series organiser to see if anyone was free for a development game. They received interest from three different teams and decided to open it up to run a festival instead of a one off match.
The club ended up hosting over 60 women playing at the festival over three matches. At least ten, if not more, had never played a rugby match before and five of those were from Witham. Participating clubs included Norwich Medics RFC, Felixstowe Honey Badgers, Burnham RFC Ladies, Chelmsford RFC Ladies development team and Ipswich Scorpions development team.
Kate Petts, coach at Witham RUFC, said: “It was a fantastic afternoon of women’s development rugby, bringing together teams from across six clubs and three counties. The games were played in the best of spirits, with all players learning new things about the game and themselves.
“There were supporters from all the clubs getting involved and cheering on all the teams. It was a huge amount of fun and incredibly rewarding to organise, Witham hopes to host a similar event next year too.”
DAY OF FUN AT LAKENHAM
On November 5, Lakenham Hewett Ladies held an Inner Warrior event and decided to host it as a brunch and training session. Players met at 10am and held an hour-long session which was designed to be accessible for all abilities. The club then put on an offering of bacon rolls, sausage baps, cereal as well as tea, coffee, and juice, before watching the Red Roses play on the big screen in the club house.
The day was a huge success and the club even recruited two new players as a result!
Lakenham Hewitt’s Jenna Ray said: “We have hosted several Inner Warrior events over the years and have found them to be an immensely helpful recruitment tool. Inner Warrior is about showing women that rugby is for them and is a fantastic way of making friends, getting fit and joining a family.
“We have always paired the sessions with a social event, so it's an opportunity for newcomers to meet the team, get acquainted with the club and get an insight into what it's like to be part of our amazing team. We pride ourselves on building a community that starts with rugby but ends as family, Inner Warrior is the perfect platform to demonstrate this. Every Inner Warrior event we have hosted has resulted in new recruits and the sessions offer a great way to build up the squad."
