Run by volunteers, the site was launched in 2009 to generate coverage of the global game and to make up for a lack of mainstream media coverage.
Though media coverage is now greatly improved, Scrumqueens continues to provide coverage of major international women’s competitions such as the Six Nations, World Sevens Series, the European Championships and the Women’s Rugby World Cup and its qualifying competitions.
As the site has grown and developed it has also expanded to including coverage from a range of top domestic tournaments including from England, France, Ireland and New Zealand.
The site carries regular interviews with the leading figures of the game and provides thought provoking analysis on the growth of the sport. Founder Ali Donnelly has also written a world-first history book on women’s rugby, which was published in 2022, and has won awards including from the Rugby Writers Association. The website was previously shortlisted for media organisation of the year by the Women’s Sports Trust, alongside the BBC and BT Sport.
Ali Donnelly
Ali is the founder and editor of Scrumqueens.com and has been involved in promoting women’s rugby for many years. As well as being the former PRO for the Irish women’s rugby team while she was still at university, she’s supported major international rugby tournaments for World Rugby and the IRFU. She regularly writes on the women’s game for a range of leading newspapers and magazines including Rugby World Magazine and the Sunday Times. She was named in the Top 50 most influential people in rugby by Rugby World in 2016 and her book ‘Scrumqueens – the story of women’s rugby’ was published in 2023 and shortlisted for Rugby Book of the Year. Her day job is as CEO for More than Equal, a global initiative seeking to find and develop future female Formula 1 drivers.
Sarah Edwards
Sarah Edwards is the owner of creative agency Make it Clear, who designed and built this website. Sarah’s team also provided technical launch support for the site and play a key role as it develops. She too is passionate about women’s rugby, and is a former player and chair at Teddington RFC in London.
Contributors
Scrumqueens.com is grateful to a number of people who provide content and images for the site. These include in particular John Birch, who writes a huge number of feature pieces regularly for the site and regularly crunches the numbers for in-depth data articles. John writes outstanding previews and reviews of the game from around the world. John has also established a superb fixture archive on the women’s game which are accessed from our Data link (above).
Scrum queens
The story of women’s rugby
Scrum Queens: The Story of Women's Rugby, from 1880 to the
present day charts the fascinating journey of women's rugby, from widespread social
disapproval to the modern era of Olympic recognition and professionalism.
Along the way, the book takes in all the major moments in the history of the women's game,
from groundbreaking games during the war, to the first World Cup in 1991 and a momentous
first appearance for women's rugby at the 2016 Olympics. There are stories of the pioneers
who fought to get the game played in its earliest days, like New Zealand's Nita Webbe and
France's Henry Fléchon, while the more modern-day drivers of the game, like England's Carol
Isherwood, also feature.
fEATURES
fixTURES
European Trophy
05 Apr 2025
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Belgium
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Finland