RFU considering new Anglo-French women's competition
Nigel Melville is exploring the possibility of setting up a cross border women's club competition between England and France
©PA
The Rugby Football Union has stated that they are considering a new Anglo-French women's competition to accompany the inaugural Tyrrell's Premier 15s.
Tyrrells Premier 15s tournament will kick-off this Saturday and will see an investment of £2.4million from the RFU over the next three years with clubs benefitting directly.
The funding is being used to improve strength and conditioning, analysis and medical departments, although no players will be paid beyond the 17 contracted by England for the upcoming sevens campaign.
Director of professional rugby for the RFU Nigel Melville, who has overseen the women's tournament said the cross-border competition will be something that will be discussed in the coming months.
"Some of our teams have been over there playing pre-season games and they loved it. Good quality, great crowds... so why not?
"We've got to look at everything. It's a blank piece of paper in many ways. I talk to France all the time."
It is hoped that Sky Sports, the official broadcaster will telecast few matches of the competition while the games will also be streamed on the competition's official website.
"There will be some webcast games - we've got five initially planned - and Sky will probably be able to cover some of our games under our agreement so we're talking to them about that," Melville said.
"There are some double headers as well with the Championship clubs - for example Bristol as a Championship club are on Sky and we could do the Tyrrell's game afterwards as a double header.
"There are so many opportunities now and we've also got our own platform now - so if you can't get it on the BBC or on Sky then we can make sure that people see it every week.
"Every game is filmed anyway so it means that all of the tries that we have we can package together."
Melville also believes the Tyrrells Premier 15s will help more women's players gain valuable exposure and strengthen the squad further.
"The pool of elite players is small. Everyone around the world has this problem," Melville said.
"If we could double the number of elite players in the squad and we could get to 50 or 60 elite players then we are going to move the game forward on all fronts. Putting that in place is what we need."
