Mik A
@mikadooo.bsky.social
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Dad, engineer, likes watching rugby
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- For the men, there's at least a chance of a GB7 team built around a strong Scottish core. Hopefully they'll do better than last year.
(-this differs from Nucifora's Ireland model where a contracted women's 7s squad was the priority over women's 15s; however Scotland are hamstrung by the existence of GB7s)

- for the women this looks like continued mediocrity - minimal Union support and minimal squad preparation.
- the women come from their "national programmes" which for Scotland is presumably the player pool that goes into the CC plus contracted 15s players and for England is players based with PWR clubs. I didn't see any hint of Scotland contracting 7s players specifically. Not sure who the coaches are.
- there's a "programme" for Scotland Men, including contracted players and up-and-comers

- I think it'll difficult for Scotland to get competitive matches as adistinct team - presumably World Series and Rugby Europe Championship remain GB-only
Parsing through that report very carefully (& possibly reading too much between lines) it seems that:

- GB7s is being directed by Ciaran Beattie (perhaps the women from long range, if they're based in E&W)

- GB7 teams will be "tournament-based" implying little squad time between tournaments
Depends who’s got the ball…
It's interesting how the proportion who went to University appears to have dropped over time in multiple sports - I wonder if it's to do with better development pathways and pro opportunities coming earlier in life than used to be the case. The trend is least clear with Women's rugby.
Amongst a range of sports, cricket had by far the most private school attendees (based on people who played for England in the year up to March 2025). Olympic medallists from Paris 2024 also notably drawn from private schools.

It's unclear whether Women's rugby's % drop from 2019 is a real trend
Men's rugby is notably posher, with 36% having attended private school, but less brainy (only 31% went to Uni).

The rugby players surveyed were the Men's and Women's Six Nations squads for England, Scotland and Wales this year.
According to the Sutton Trust, Women's rugby isn't too bad a reflection of the overall UK demographic. 10% educated outside the UK, 9% at private schools and virtually all the rest at comprehensives.

The proportion that went to Uni is however high compared to the UK norm (around 50% I think)
FWIW the yellow card against Bordeaux #9 (Canadian Taylor Donato) seemed very harsh to me. She was carded for cynically killing the ball, but so far as I could see, she was jackalling legally before Toulouse #6 flopped all over her.
Ah that explains it. What incredibly low effort
@STFeminin est bon sur Twitter
The other thing of interest is Berthoumieu's explanation of how she (by her account) panicked feeling claustrophobic with Wafer's arm across her face. This feels a little odd from a flanker who must have found herself at the bottom of hundreds of rucks in her career but heck, who's to say.
Apart from that, the additional evidence doesn't do a lot to excuse the refereeing team from having missed the bite on the day. There was apparently reddening to Wafer's arm at the point where it was bitten, but it's strange that Aimee Barrett-Theron didn't check for this herself on field.
Just in case anyone is still following this issue, World Rugby did publish the written decision of the Disciplinary Committee and... I guess the main "additional evidential submission" was Berthoumieu admitting biting.

resources.worldrugby-rims.pulselive.com/worldrugby/d...
Particularly odd is the refusal of the Elite 1 Twitter account to use the correct handle for Toulouse Women, given that that account is active. Instead they consistently link to the parent club, which barely mentions the Women’s team at all.
Very weird how the Elite 1 Twitter account has posted naming the teams in that league but giving dead links to most of them.

I get that French rugby isn’t particularly big on Twitter, and some teams have no live presence there. But it’s not hard to do better than this post.
Yeah. You understand Canal+ wanting to start with a showpiece but it looks like the person responsible for getting the match rescheduled didn’t understand it would be affected by the World Cup.
I noticed a few international players appeared in the finals of the PWR Cup. I hope that was by choice, not by pressure. So far as I could see it was all players who didn’t appear in the semifinals or finals of the RWC, which mitigates the impact a bit, I suppose.