ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The Australian women’s rugby union team has criticised the code’s governing body this week after they treated the “wives and girlfriends” of the Wallabies World Cup Squad to a weekend in Sydney to farewell the boys before they headed off the France in the front of a Qantas jet.
Known as the Wallaroos, the national women’s rugby team receives a tiny fraction of funding from Rugby Australia compared to the men’s team. Claims that the cost of the Wallabies’ outdoor gym would be enough to cover the women’s team for a whole year have been levelled at Rugby Australia’s boss Hamish.
The complaints against Rugby Australia were made in the form of an open letter, which nearly every Wallaroos player then shared on.
It’s been met with a pensive response from Hamish, who told the media today that rugby would be nothing without women.
“Women are a pillar of rugby union,” he told reporters at the code’s headquarters on Sydney’s Lower East Side.
“They give birth to Wallabies. They give birth to support staff that help the Wallabies be the best versions of themselves. Every coach has a mother. It’s a common misconception that a lot of private school students are from wealthy backgrounds. In some private school families, the woman also works to contribute money towards school fees. It’s actually quite common. Without women working in those families, their meathead sons would end up playing rugby league or no sport at all,”
“We don’t take women for granted here at Rugby Australia. I have a dream that one day, we will see a Matilda-level frenzy on the, uh, the, uh, the Wallabettes? Anyway, it’s all in development and we’re working with stakeholders to continue to push the paradigm on this problem to create more quixotic outcomes for that section of our species. Thanks.”
Hamish didn’t take any more questions.
More to come.
