If you felt that last year's World Cup did not get that much publicity, and that in addition this season's England Grand Slam also went past without making much of a dent in the consciousness of the country's media then this pales into... well, I guess "significance" compared with England's next challenge.
For on Saturday England will be in Madrid competing for the first (well, I assume its first) Women's European Cup - a competition that at present seems to be requiring the invention of whole new lexicon of words to describe its media profile. Even the page devoted to it on the RFUW website can only be described as "minimalist".
Despite appearances this is a competition which will actually feature eight nations - France, Sweden, Netherlands and Wales are also taking part (not Scotland or Ireland though - no idea why...).
There is ever so marginally more information available on the FIRA website - but even they - the organisers - have clearly not felt the need to bust a gut over the promotion of the event. Like saying what the rules are, or where the matches will be played (other than "Madrid", which is a bit vague) - you know, details like that (mind you the RFUW just gives the venue as "Spain", so it could be worse!).
No idea who is in the England team - one assumes they are sending the full squad - in which case some of these games could get a shade one-sided.
But there we are. This blog has probably already given the event a bigger write-up than the rest of the world's media combined. Shame really. The final (inevitably between England and Wales or France) on 5th May should be quite interesting.
[UPDATE] Vincent Acheson has dug around a bit (see comments) and discovered that apparently England are sending an "A" team (though there seem to be a good scattering of full caps in there), which makes sense and actually makes it even more interesting because presumably this young side may well be the basis of the next World Cup team. Shame its all getting about as much coverage as the Albanian Ice Hockey league.
Also its NOT the first competition - which would seem to be news even to FIRA, going by their linguistically challenged website.
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Vincent
Ah - well done Vincent.
So it HAS happened before... you'd not think that by looking at the FIRA website...
Good to see that its the A team as it would be a rather pointless event if the full side had gone. Having the younger string there does at least give the venture some purpose.
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