Will’s World: Great things happen when women run with the ball

I’m always late to the party when it comes to celebration days and should really try harder to time my ramblings accordingly, but I’m a big fan of International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on 8 March.

I’m fortunate enough to have several amazing women in my family, and many of my closest friends, as well as some of my most inspirational colleagues within the world of farming, also happen to be female. 

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I know some people are cynical about this kind of thing, but I’m all in favour.

If you look into the history of the day, it goes back to 1909 and the women’s rights movement, and it gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. So, more important than ever, I’d say.

Coach trip

This year, I spent most of the day coaching my under-14s girls in an away match at Clwb Rygbi Bethesda on the edge of Eryri.

It’s a beautiful place to play rugby, situated on the outskirts of the town, near the River Ogwen with snow-capped mountains in the near distance.

The weather even stayed decent for once, unlike most of this season, where we’ve played in every variation of rain, sleet, hail and cold that the Welsh climate has to offer.

But every week the girls turn up to training and games, and give everything for their team and each other without complaint, and I’m very proud to coach such an amazing group of young women.

I’m often struck by how integral to the community rugby clubs are here in Wales, and how often volunteers and coaches come from local farming families.

Every week I get talking to someone who has to rush off after the final whistle to do the milking or feed the calves, and it’s always nice to make those connections.

There’s one club we play regularly whose clubhouse smells faintly of wet sheep, and it always makes me smile when I walk through the door; an evocative reminder of just how many farmers are present.

The meteoric rise of girls’ and women’s rugby has been mirrored in farming in recent years, where female farmers have gained prominence and become far more the norm than they were a generation ago.

Family glue

It seems slightly odd to me that it was ever a thing in the first place, given that in most farming families women are the glue that holds the whole thing together.

To any younger readers who may be surprised by this, it was only in the late 1990s when our local practice employed their first female vet.

Until then, it had been considered a predominantly male career, and I well remember the controversy it caused locally.

“But she won’t be strong enough”, they said. “How will she manage with a difficult calving?”

Of course, “they” couldn’t have been more off the mark. This 5ft-nothing powerhouse of a woman proceeded to prove them all wrong by being an all-round brilliant vet who could handle any kind of problem birth with the very best of them.

Now the majority of large-animal vets are female, and it’ll be interesting to see how the face of farming changes over the next few decades, given the increased number of young women who are coming into the industry.

I do still get the odd “oh, isn’t it a shame you had no sons to take over the farm”, and I always respond the same way: “Mate, have you met my daughters?”