Scottish Rugby joins home unions to improve standards and strengthen the competitiveness of the women’s international game

Backed by UK Sport funding, this international collaboration between the four Unions is one of the programme’s five flagship strands, focused on International Development.

Impact ’25 is the transformative legacy programme for RWC25, delivered by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) in partnership with the UK Government, Sport England and UK Sport, to supercharge the growth of women’s rugby. You can find out more about the remaining four strands here.

UK Sport is distributing this UK Government funding to support the hosting costs for the 2025 Rugby World Cup and to support the International Development strand of Impact ’25.

The strand is designed to enhance and expand female performance pathways across all Home Unions in a bid to improve standards and strengthen the competitiveness of the international game. It also aims to improve the quality and quantity of female coaches and officials in the elite game in the UK.

The RFU is working closely with the WRU, Scottish Rugby, and the IRFU to deliver an agreed number of programmes in each Union. These programmes support activity to grow the women’s game and enhance elite performance pathways.

Each Union has taken an individual approach to using the funding in the way that best suits their own domestic setup. The programme also creates a fantastic opportunity for all four Unions to collaborate, share best practice and learn from each other.

Scottish Rugby focused on the importance of a meaningful daily training environment for their elite players, currently delivered at three Regional Training Centres across the country.

The Impact ’25 funding has been put towards funding the salaries of three full time performance coaches, one at each of the centres. This means players can access high quality coaching regardless of where they live, meaning that 100 players nationally now benefit from daily training.