One step back, and then another forwards again. On the day Louis Rees-Zammit, one of the brightest young stars of the last British & Irish Lions tour, announced he was quitting rugby to play American football, thousands of female players learned they will finally get a shot at the sort of opportunity from which he has just walked away. The Lions have announced they will send their first women’s team on tour to New Zealand in 2027, a welcome reminder that even if the men’s game is struggling there is still plenty of room left for the sport to grow.
The Lions will play three Tests against the Black Ferns in September 2027 and, they hope, five warmup matches against provincial teams. They have a series sponsor, Howden, and a shirt sponsor, Royal London, who have, impressively, already pledged to invest significant funding in the pathway systems of all four unions to help develop a larger pool of eligible players and coaches.
The tour comes at the end of a three‑year feasibility study, which found that the project would be commercially viable as long as it had a space of its own in the playing schedule.
With the recent reconfiguring of the global calendar, that space has now been secured. New Zealand was chosen as the first tour destination because of the Black Ferns’ status as back-to-back world champions, and the crowds that turned out when they hosted the women’s World Cup in 2021.
The Lions say they are already anticipating sellout crowds for the tour. Beyond that the Lions chief executive, Ben Calveley, said the women’s team will not necessarily replicate the men’s tour programme, and that France and the US are both likely venues for future women’s Lions tours.
“It’s unbelievably exciting to be able to announce this,” said the former Ireland international Niamh Briggs, who was a member of the Lions’ steering group. “In three years’ time from now the game is going to be unrecognisable, just as the difference between where it was when we started playing and where it is now is night and day.
“The women’s game is growing even faster than some of the unions can keep up with, and this Lions tour is going to be huge for that next generation – it’s something tangible that young players can work towards, the chance to be the best of the best.”
Calveley said the exact details of the remuneration the women will receive are still to be agreed. But then it was not so long ago that women had to pay for their own jerseys when they played Test rugby. The game has come a long way in just the past few years, and the Lions tour is another leap forward. It is just a shame it took them 136 years to get around to it.
“When you say it out loud, it’s mad that we’ve got this far and there wasn’t a women’s team,” the England international Shaunagh Brown said. “But the important thing is that there is now, and that people understand we are part of the future of the game.”
