Will’s World: Rugby World Cup is perfect time to plug protein
© Lee Boswell Photography This will be a familiar tale to fellow parents. Several years ago, the eldest of our numerous daughters expressed an interest in playing rugby.
She’d enjoyed watching the game with me since she was very young, and I couldn’t have been more delighted.
We’d recently seen an advert for a girls’ team based in Wrexham, and we duly took her along for her first training session to see if she’d enjoy it.
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To say she did would be an understatement.
As a result we now spend a staggering amount of our time ferrying her and her two youngest sisters, who play as well, to training sessions every week, as well as matches across North Wales and the marches throughout autumn, winter and spring.
You can imagine some of the weather they play in, and my record for this season was seven layers of clothing watching them train one night, and I was still freezing cold and soaked to the skin.
Never have I wished for a hip flask more. At least they get to run around and keep warm.
Coach trip
In truth, though, it’s been one of the best things to happen to us as a family, and we’ve made some great friends, spent lots of quality time together away from the farm, and made many lifelong memories.
I’ve even got involved in the coaching, and it continues to be one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.
Trying to keep a large group of extremely rowdy, strong-willed young females in some semblance of order every week isn’t for the faint-hearted.
But it’s a whole lot of fun – and let’s face it, it isn’t that different from my home life anyway.
I particularly enjoy spotting the farm kids, both at our own club and opposition clubs.
If you can’t tell by the fact that they’re wearing one of the various harlequin-style shorts brands that are such a staple of young farmer’s wardrobes, you can spot them by their family members cheering from the sidelines.
Redback boots, New Zealand-style long jacket, and if there’s a brother or two there, they’ll be sporting a magnificent mullet haircut.
Perhaps the best thing about it is seeing how fast the girls’ game is growing in the UK. It has been very evident in the years we’ve been involved.
We’ve gone from struggling for players and taking part in the occasional match, to having a huge number of girls involved and a full season of fixtures against other clubs that have grown, too.
The statistics back this up nationally, with participation numbers at an all-time high.
World Rugby has hugely ambitious plans to further expand the game throughout the world over the next decade, helped by the massive social media presence of players such as Team USA star Ilona Maher and her legion of devoted fans.
Nutrition nous
This isn’t Rugby Weekly, though, so where am I going with this?
Well, there’s a World Cup coming up this summer in England, where the home team, with farmer’s daughter Emily Scarratt among their incredibly talented ranks, are the runaway favourites to lift the trophy.
It’s going to be all over the media, and if I was a senior bod at the AHDB I’d be after it like an athletic open-side flanker on a ponderous outside-half.
What a golden opportunity to showcase some of British agriculture’s best protein products to young female athletes and their families.
I hope the marketing department are currently working overtime coming up with an exciting and relevant campaign.