Scotland Women Join South Africa Tour

Three Scottish women have been selected in the international women’s select, the Nomads, to tour South Africa this summer. Scotland Women’s highest ever capped player, Donna Kennedy, will be accompanied by Lindsay Wheeler and Lynne Reid on the tour. SWRU Rugby Manager, Jo Wells said: We are pleased to work with South Africa to facilitate a Nomads tour in order to maximise the benefits to the women’s game of these high profile events and are delighted that three Scottish players have been invited to join such an experienced squad, drawn from the best players around the world.The Nomads play the warm up games against South Africa Women’s XV, before the Springbok test match against Argentina’s Pumas on 9 August, as part of the celebrations for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday.The inclusion of Scottish Women in the squad came following the completion of the long term competition plan for the Scotland Women’s team, designed to best prepare the side for the World Cup 2010. The plan was to include either the FIRA European Championships 2008 or a summer tour to South Africa in 2008 and in February/March it was decided that the South Africa tour for the full national squad would not be included in the 2008/9 season due to the potential inclusion of the FIRA results in the qualification process for RWC 2010.This was communicated to the South African governing body and the SWRU board however South Africa remained keen to play an international fixture against Scotland and continued to pursue opportunities for sponsorship. Scotland were then contacted with an offer of an all expenses paid tour three weeks prior to the date of the proposed first test. Unfortunately, while the funding and itinerary presented an exceptional opportunity to develop the profile of the women’s game in South Africa and beyond, the three week’s notice did not present a realistic or adequate timescale to prepare and plan an international tour.Jo Wells added: “Scotland Women’s players are amateurs and work extremely hard to plan their time and to manage often demanding full-time jobs in order to train and play for Scotland in a professional manner. “In return the SWRU strives to provide a well structured, high quality, planned, and reasonably spaced programme which is communicated well in advance and for this reason we will focus our efforts on the coming season’s Six Nations and FIRA championships.”