Coach’s ‘backward’ idea for women’s rugby slammed

That led to Middleton offering a solution due to the lack of “power” in the women’s game, when speaking to reporters this week.

“I have a view on it. I think we should change the parameters for goal-kicking,” Middleton said.

“If a try is scored [within five metres of the touchline], the option should be there, maybe not to bring it into the 15-metre line, but maybe 10 metres from the touchline.

“If you gave someone the option of kicking from the touchline or bringing it 10 metres in, I would hazard a guess that most kickers in the female game would bring it in.

“I think that could impact the game and change it positively. I think it is a bit of an unfair game for female kickers because so much about goal-kicking relies on power.

“Holly struck the ball beautifully last week and dropped about five under the crossbar.

“You want to be rewarded for good skill and hard practice and I don’t think they get rewarded because of physical constraints that come with what we know is a natural discrepancy between male and female athletes.”

The comments sparked a negative reaction from women’s players and coaches in Australia, with Waratahs women’s coach Campbell Aitken labelling the idea a “slap in the face for the girls”.

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Hewson, one of Australia’s most prolific No.10s, also disagreed with the proposal.

“I just see this as a step backwards,” Hewson said. “I really don’t understand where Simon Middleton is coming from to be honest with you.

“I think there’s plenty of female rugby players, past and present, that have the ability to kick from anywhere on the field as well as their male counterparts. They’re usually half their size too.

“The biggest thing for me is we have fought for so long and so hard for equality in women’s sport in general – not just rugby – and we’ve still got such a long way to go. I understand where he’s coming from, in a sense, but we don’t put women’s soccer players on a smaller pitch.”

Waratahs women’s coach Aitken said: “I wouldn’t like to see it come in … I think it is a bit of a slap in the face for the girls. I’d encourage teams to score more tries and run the ball around.

“If you score out wide, you score out wide. There are goal-kickers who are very competent and Ash being one of them.

“One of the attractions of the women’s game is they’re more likely to take tap penalties or have a crack from scrums.

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“I think AFL has a bigger problem than we do around attractiveness of the game. No one has complained in Super W that conversions aren’t going over.”

World Rugby posted a video on its Rugby World Cup Twitter page on Thursday, showing highlights of female players kicking sideline conversions at last year’s tournament with ease.

Hewson believes the kicking side of the game needs more development for female players, saying she can’t recall ever receiving proper training during her career.

“[Middleton’s idea] is not having faith in the systems to develop players,” Hewson said. “It definitely needs to be coached.

“There are plenty of women at the moment in Super W who can strike a ball, they just are missing a bit of that technique. Because of a lack of resources, that has never really been acknowledged or worked on. It’s such an imperative part of the game. Getting three-pointers changes the game.”

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