Scrumqueens birthday: Our top stories

This week Scrumqueens.com is celebrating its 5th birthday with five years of offering in depth analysis and news from around...

Published by Alison Donnelly, October 5, 2014

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Scrumqueens birthday: Our top stories

This was also one of the first stories on Scrumqueens to be picked up by the world at large. The?˜?˜where it all took place - even staging?˜, with one of Emily's descendent's reading from Emily's memoires. The story went on to appear in magazines and on websites?˜around the world, from Ireland to Papua New Guinea, and was featured in an?˜?˜and even inspired?˜.

For a?˜website then less than a year old, it was quite a start and quite a story.

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One policy Scrumqueens has had from the start was that we would not simply reproduce press releases, nor accept without question information by unions or governing bodies, where possible without some analysis or additional insight. A recent example of this - which produced?˜widespread interest and comment - resulted from IRB claims that there are 1.5 million women rugby players worldwide.

It?˜?˜so we set about looking at how this worked realistically. The IRB provided us with original data?˜and we were then able?˜publish a first?˜, the top eight of?˜which provded remarkably similar to the top eight at the subsquent World Cup. After this appeared a reader pointed out that several of the leading teams in the list were from very large countries, and as a result we were able to a that took that into account as well.?˜A bit of fun? Yes - but the series of articles not only corrected ideas as to which were the?˜largest women's rugby nations, the?˜made the point that unions claiming to have more players than they do does not help the game expand. It was interesting that at least one union's recenty-announced expansion programme seemed to ignore its previous player number claims showing the thorny issues around how to count and what to count when it comes to announcing player numbers.

The IRB and member unions are now very clear about the game being for all, and about?˜treating male and female players equally. It is?˜a great commitment, but how deep did it go? Earlier this year we highighted the IRB's Rugby Hall of Fame and about equality (). We built on this on International Women's Day with an ?˜with some suggestions. Result? Well, some promises, but we are still waiting though expect there to be a first female inductee later this year. It's a start.

In the absence of any IRB world test ranking for women's teams we also started publishing ?˜which always generate huge traffic on the site. Again this seemed to fill a need (they have been increasingly referred to in the media) and again we are promised some official annoucements in the future. A space worth watching.Our end of year?˜awards were launched in 2011 given the absence of official wider awards in the game. The result was remarkable, with - much to our delight?˜- many unions around the world picking up our nominations and using them to attract local publicity and?˜help them promote the game (and as a result giving a hint about what could be achieved if there were more official wider spanning?˜awards).?˜In 2013 we introduced an opportunity for readers to nominate and share their support,?˜and the awards have are now become a much anticipated?˜and highly read feature?˜at the end of year in the women's game. See and for details of last year's winners and for coverage in media in , ?˜and

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