British and Irish Lions: 13-member feasibility group shaped to take a look at creating girls’s group

Feasibility group will likely be chaired by former Lions participant and present board member Ieuan Evans; Lions managing director Ben Calveley: “Monetary viability, appropriate opposition and applicable scheduling will all want cautious consideration”

The formation of a British and Irish Lions girls’s group has probably moved a step nearer with the announcement of a 13-strong feasibility group.

Chaired by former Lions star and present Lions board member Ieuan Evans, the group contains skilled directors from throughout skilled rugby, in addition to enterprise executives.

Becoming a member of Evans would be the likes of Sky’s company affairs director Joanna Manning-Cooper, the Rugby Soccer Union’s chief working and monetary officer Sue Day, Scottish Rugby’s head of women and girls’s technique Gemma Fay, World Rugby’s girls’s high-performance supervisor Nicky Ponsford and Eire worldwide Niamh Briggs.

The steering group will provoke a feasibility research to be overseen by a specialist consulting group.

Lions managing director and steering group member Ben Calveley mentioned: “We’re excited to have put collectively such a stellar record of people who I do know will add worth to this venture.

The latest Lions tour happened this summer time, with South Africa recording a 2-1 sequence win over Warren Gatland’s facet

“I consider a girls’s Lions group is a large alternative, however there are a selection of challenges to contemplate when seeking to create a profitable girls’s set-up.

“Monetary viability, appropriate opposition and applicable scheduling within the girls’s rugby calendar will all want rigorous evaluation, analysis and cautious consideration.”

And Evans added: “Girls’s rugby is experiencing unprecedented progress all over the world, with participation ranges persevering with to extend yearly.

“A girls’s Lions group is an enormous alternative for the ladies’s sport, and I’m wanting ahead to working with the steering group to evaluate its viability.”

The research will likely be supported by Royal London, whose group chief advertising and marketing officer Susie Logan mentioned: “We’re dedicated to levelling the enjoying subject in sport.

“And we’re delighted to be supporting this vital research to know if the creation of a British and Irish Lions group for ladies will likely be doable.

“We need to assist a society that’s inclusive and advantages everybody, and this partnership with the Lions is a good alternative to develop girls’s rugby.”