World Rugby Course on Coaching Women and Girls
There's a new World Rugby course out that looks at coaching within the female game. Let's dig into it.
Last week World Rugby released a new online course: ‘Coaching Women and Girls’.
You may have seen some of the talking points. My thoughts are mixed. There are good and bad points that I want to go through.
Let’s talk about that table…
It’s now been deleted, but intially at the beginning of the course there was a table outlining some problematic lines of thought.
Firstly, any table that categorizes men and women in opposing, neat-looking boxes is immediately going to raise eyebrows.
When I saw it, I recalled the research into gender bias in coaching conducted by Sophia Jowett that I’ve spoken about before. It includes the assumptions that men can only lead by taking charge and women only be leaders through caring.
This leads to people thinking a coach’s philosophy is solely based on their gender and not informed by their whole being and experiences. These biases affect men and women.
I’m not a neuroscientist, but I have sought some advice about the evidence for differences in brain function that was referred to in the course before being removed.
The table in the picture above comes from a book by Cunningham and Roberts, published in 2006, that explores how to market products to women.
There has been more recent work that has stated there are minimal differences between male and female brains.
This includes this piece of work, published in 2021 which looked at three decades of research to conclude that “The human brain is not ‘sexually dimorphic’.” Meaning there are no structural differences between male and female brains.1
I could dive into how behavioural differences between genders are down to socialisation, but that might be another long article for another day.
One of the links that the World Rugby course suggests for further reading cites the same research. It was a report released in 2010, which is on the Women in Sport website.
Alongside the 2006 book by Cunningham and Roberts, the 2010 report cites a work titled ‘The Female Brain’ written by Louann Brizendine, also published in 2006. Brizendine wrote about the differences between male and female brains.
However, I did some digging and found that Brizendine later thought she had over-hyped the differences between male and female brains.
In a really helpful article, Alina Tugend2 goes through some of the research in this field. Published in 2014, it includes this paragraph about Brizendine:
“Brizendine now acknowledges that maybe ‘she let the pendulum swing too far the other way,” when writing about innate differences in the sexes. ‘Males and females are more alike than they’re different,’ she says. ‘After all, we are the same species’.”
So where do I find myself? I’m thinking about the socialisation of boys and girls and how we place harmful stereotypes in people’s way.
I’m also thinking about how some of the differences come down to how long people have spent in a sport. If I’m coaching someone who has 2 years in a sport versus 10, I might adapt my approach.
Moving on to the rest of the course
The other elements of the course contain some good aspects for coaches. At the core of it is a video conversation between Giselle Mather and Sir Wayne Smith.
Both are coaching legends. I had the privilege of listening to Smith during a recent Crusaders Leadership Programme. Annoyingly for my own personal development, I’ve not had the chance for direct chats from Mather (yet!)
There is a 40 minute video at the end of the main sections. Elements of the video are also used in the 5 areas the course focuses on: ‘Coaching curious players’, ‘Motivating players’, ‘Managing players’ emotions’ and ‘Physiological specificities’.
The course sets out a basic landscape of coaching female players. This includes building connections and framing the training sessions.
One of the interesting aspects was when Smith mentioned that some of these practices, specifically around player selection, should be translated into men’s rugby.
Mather also mentioned the lack of diversity within male teams and coaching set ups, and that may mean the positives of different approaches by a diverse coaching team is being missed.
Prioritising connection is important, the course emphasized the role that building a community has. I’ve found playing a part in creating a community for a team of women immensely powerful.
I often use water breaks and the time in between players leaving their water bottles and walking to the next activity as a time to socialise and bond.
World Rugby mentioned using water breaks as a tactic to help players socialise and then focus during the practical parts of training.
This was also ironic to me as I was once criticised for incorporating this method into my coaching practice, in a series of experiences that were rooted within gender bias.
I often wonder if more of these practices, like Smith says, should be transferred across into men’s rugby. I think about whether the ways of doing within men’s rugby exists because of survivorship bias.
Coaching the individual is paramount. The discussions that these two coaches have around building connection, focusing on positives and maintaining a sense of fun throughout a training week is important to hear…and, personally, affirming for me and my way of doing.
The last of the main sections looks at a few female health topics including menstruation and post-natal players.
Including these topics is important, although I would like future content that helps coaches and gives them practical tips to use within their practice.
Every week I feel that I bang the drum for more content around female health and coaching rugby to players that are new to it.
This is a start from World Rugby (alongside the existing Contact Confident content, which I’m a huge fan of, that helps coaches deliver contact to female players).
At first glance, aspects of this course may seem like surface level knowledge, but it’s important to cover the basics. All information seems obvious when you know it.
Building content around two coaches having a conversation made it engaging for me.
Some of the further reading is also great, but it’s worth a reminder to be mindful of how long ago something was published and whether there’s more recent information.
I refer to Women in Sports recent work and reports alot, and the girls section of ICoachKids is set to be added onto my reading list.
At the end of the reading list are some videos released by World Rugby called ‘The Girl’s Locker Room’. These are on different topics, like sports bras, in order to educate and empower.
Having content like this is brilliant and I think more effort shouting about this is needed. Let’s not have great content produced by World Rugby or anyone shoved to the back of a list of references.
More infographics, more videos, more content from players, more content from coaches. Target different audiences with different content. Players, coaches and club committees can all benefit from education and sharing.
Instead of two steps forward, one step back, let’s have three steps forward.
In summary: Is the course worth doing? Yes. (I would argue anything with Wayne Smith and Giselle Mather is worth a look!)
But when reading references (on whatever platform not just this course) check the date it was published, in case there’s something newer/a different perspective.
If you like Coaching Care Creativity and want to support the work, you can buy me a coffee by clicking the link:
Lise Eliot, Adnan Ahmed, Hiba Khan, Julie Patel, Dump the “dimorphism”: Comprehensive synthesis of human brain studies reveals few male-female differences beyond size, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Volume 125, 2021,
Alina Tugend, Endangering Sons: Is It Doable—or Even Desirable—to Raise Gender-Neutral Children? December 10, 2014, Califonia