RNRU Royal Navy Rugby Union

With their first appearance at Twickenham Stadium only 3 months away the Royal Navy Rugby Union Senior Women kick off their season tonight against Ellingham & Ringwood RFC.  

Throughout the pandemic the Royal Navy Women’s Side has continued to recruit. This has included a mixture of both players who have never touched a rugby ball before and those with playing experience who have only recently joined the Royal Navy. Most of these new players gained a taste of Royal Navy rugby in games for the Royal Navy Women’s Development Side. With many of the experienced Senior Squad deployed right up until Christmas this evening’s match provides the first opportunity for both the new and the capped players to get together as one squad and get this season underway.

10 time Capped player, PO(Wtr) Anne-Marie McIntyre (cap #31) based in Plymouth, said “To finally get the senior squad together with new and more established players has been exciting and we can now build to what we hope will be a competitive and ground breaking Inter Services 2022. The first step in this will be playing Ellingham and Ringwood where we hope to build on a successful development season. Training over the last 24hrs has been hard-work but rewarding and there is clearly a lot of competition for a shirt this season, we now need to ensure we play together to as one for a strong performance.”

The Development Side had a hugely successful (and unbeaten) season and have built momentum for this special season for the Senior Side. The squad is building up to playing Marine Nationale in France on the 12th March before the Inter-Services with the Navy Women taking on the Army women at Twickenham for the first time in the history of the Royal Navy Rugby Union Women’s Side.