THE PROFESSIONAL ERA: PART 2

In part one of this series, we looked at the different professional contract structures across Australia, Canada, England and New Zealand.

Alongside these numbers, we provided insight from players who have lived through this transition to the professional era.

Unlike their male counterparts, these contracts have been primarily offered to those playing in the country’s colours, with domestic competitions yet to offer full time wages. 

This concentration of investment has led to disparity that our players touched on previously.

We dive deeper into that now, to understand the growing pains our game is going through to reach the full height of its potential. 

The widening gap

Almost every player we spoke to agreed that contracts add a layer of pressure to performance and the uncertainty of non renewal can be hugely challenging given the short term nature of many deals.

“You're under the pump all the time,” Black Fern #173, Chelsea Semple says. 

“There's always pressure to make a team but when it's your job to make the team, that's when the pressure can come on even more.

“What do you do? Do you find a job that you think will give you three months off for Aupiki (New Zealand’s major competition) because you still want that dream? You think, maybe if I play really well I can get another contract. So you put your career on hold for that three or four months of Aupiki only to lose out again. It's a sort of really weird space at the moment. “In my time, I was contracted for every year that was available. So for six years, I got one year at a time, all of those years. So you're always thinking what am I going to do next? What if I don't get contracted? What if I get injured? W And that plays a massive toll on your mindset.”

There is indication that New Zealand Rugby may slowly be moving towards offering more certainty within their playing group. With Black Ferns co-captain, Kennedy Simon, recently offered a record breaking four year deal. However this is just one signing within a squad of 35, bringing a weight of expectation onto Simon as the test case for longer term investment. 

The variability in player experiences is something Jo Brown, who plays her rugby in England’s top league and who is capped for Ireland, knows all too well, observing that sometimes the gap is evident too within a team environment. 

“Below those centrally contracted players of course the gap does widen and it can create issues in a team.  In a club set up here, even at PWR level, there will be some players on nothing at all and some players who are full time. 

“If you’re on nothing and you’re killing yourself training, that can create some division if they think those earning aren’t working hard enough. And on the flipside you can get full time girls who have done all their training and they’re saying why aren’t the girls keeping up. There is a disparity - and you see a lot of pressure on those fulltime players.”

With Canadian players all currently in the same boat, Emily Tuttosi takes a wider view. 

There is much research into the gender pay gap and in particular the way in which motherhood can impact a woman's earning potential over a lifetime. Tuttosi believes a woman pursuing her sport could be facing similar setbacks in their long term economic security. 

“It does help now that it feels more cost neutral, for sure. Because especially women, you're also flirting with ‘Oh I can't go in the hole more or what if after the next World Cup, I'm going to try and start a family’. It's the life after rugby that I think when you hit a certain age, it's probably in the back of your mind. 

“As well as from a I've had to pay more money and I get paid less than a man has his whole career. Even if we've had an identical one. So you're just kind of naturally started behind post rugby as well.”

Threats to the current model

For Tuttosi, the disparate nature of Canada’s players and the overreliance on other systems is an ongoing concern.

“The amount of players that need to find domestic play in other countries is always a concern.  Even in the PWR this year, you need a certain number of England qualified players on a team sheet, which obviously means if you're not eligible to play for England, that you get put in the pot with other players and that is a factor in playing time. 

“Players feel they have no real choice but to go.  I really cherish my time playing Canadian club rugby but  you can have people that are in their first or second year of playing rugby ever with  a national team member. It is a cool experience for everyone and I think it gives different opportunities to expand leadership, but ultimately, from a performance point of view, there's better ways to physically prepare for international rugby.”

Contracts, and the threat of their removal, can also cause significant pressures mentally on players, adding stress when there should be space for focus on performance and creating concerns around wellbeing and even safeguarding, given how many competitions some players are jumping between in order to make ends meet. 

Australian player Emily Chancellor takes a pragmatic view when it comes to payment, with the financial pressure on the Australian Rugby Union well understood as a major challenge.

“Rugby Australia's in an awkward position where we don't have the financial security as an organisation to be able to invest to see a return. We all understand that.”

 “Ultimately, it’s a juggling act for our unions. As they balance the needs of their player base against their programmes budgets.”

Where to from here?

For Semple, there are a plethora of ways to make the women’s game more popular in New Zealand, and thus making investment more sustainable.

“I'm very aware that we need the public on board with what we're doing. We need viewership and we need more people following women's rugby. And Super Rugby is a great vehicle for that because the standard and the quality is so high. Below that we still have a lot of work to do to grow the quality of the sport.”

“I’d love to see us exploring more top level games - and look at combining them with Australian competitions.  Let's play against Fijiana Drua, let's look at Japanese teams. We can't just keep doing what we're doing - we need to grow.

“Why don't we have a national Super Rugby under 20s competition for women? I think NZR are starting to really see the benefit in women's rugby but we need to move faster. There is so much more we can do but this all gets masked because we just have such good players.”

Brown too thinks that though PWR does fantastic things for the game, players can be better served.

“My thinking would be around better support to help those girls who aren’t international players so they can stay in the game. We need to better understand what they need for support and try and give that to them as they are the backbone of our league. 

“I’m 30 years old now but where I am now I will have to retire after this season because how will I ever afford to have kids or move house. There’s lots we can look at to even out the balance and make it more sustainable - we could explore how clubs train and when, or put percentages on how often a part time or unpaid player has to be able to access training.

“Financially too, I understand throwing money around isn’t the answer, but there must be a better way of engaging local businesses around a club and there are lots of little things that would really help. For example - we don't get our kit washed and it’s a small thing but if I had someone doing that, it’s just another mental load removed, having food available at training all that sort of thing helps.”

Chancellor too is full of ideas for where things could head to in Australia. 

“If I was in a high performance position and you asked me how we were going to perform in the 2025 World Cup or 2029 World Cup, I'd be saying, get all the girls and put them all in one spot - not paying for a club competition, not playing for paying for Super W, just get a great squad together and make them better.

“But that's not that not the right answer because that does nothing for the sustainability of the programme, the sustainability of rugby. And I think you need to look at both. Throwing cash doesn't fix our challenges and if we don't grow the game from the bottom up, we're only feeling the top end problem.

“If I had to do things differently from the high performance end for Wallaroos, I would be investing in centralising to two states. Having all your Wallaroos or your interested Wallaroos, in those two locations and have maximum staff and maximum resources around those two programmes and go o hard for the next 12 months until the World Cup.

“Then we need to look at growing, medium term, domestic competition. The Super W I think could look at that being double the length. You could go play everyone once, leading into some international camps and test matches, such as  PAC4.

“Long term, you have to be looking at the junior programmes and how you're getting girls to stay in the game. I don't think the fix is more money to players right now, as much as I would love it to be. I think the fix is investing in getting an under 18 Wallaroos team consistently in the picture. Getting State programmes having under 18, so that we can get more growth in the game with more time playing. 

Canada too requires an overhaul, adds Tuttosi

“A domestic league or a domestic hub city structure between us and the US would be amazing and we’re seeing examples of that in other sports.

“As much as the USA is our rival, we also know that as a nation that faces some of the same struggles we do, we want North American rugby to rise as a whole. Because if the States is better, we're better because we do get to play each other typically every year.

“We aren't able to have the same kind of maternity things, as some of the other nations have, just from a financial standpoint. But hopefully, if there are some of those athletes that are looking to come back into the system, there can even be some small adjustments made so that if a mum is coming on tour and has a young child that it could be made feasible if she so chooses.

“Blue sky from a women's Canadian rugby point of view would be obviously a contract but that's actually not even the first thing I do. I would completely eliminate pay to play for any of the U18 and U20 Canadian rugby.

“I would also be writing cheques so that the provincial pathway was more accessible across all the provinces. It does vary, some provinces pay, say $500 for the same trip that others are paying $1500. And I just think it would be exciting to see if that did strengthen those games and get more players playing.”

Part three of this series will focus on the leagues and competitions that have been set up in a professional or semi professional way and explore what has worked well and what hasn’t so far.