PETERSFIELD Rugby Club is once again opening its doors to women’s rugby after a few years in the wilderness.

The club maintained women’s senior and junior sides for some years until numbers dropped off and an edict was made by the county for clubs to send their under-13-plus girls to specific ‘cluster’ clubs in order to generate a squad of players.

Since this time the interest in women’s rugby has grown and there are now more than 18,000 women and girls playing rugby regularly in England and the Rugby Football Union has committed to grow this to 100,000 across the country.

The international success of England Women has helped in spreading the word; the team won the Rugby World Cup in 2014.

Girls already participate in mixed mini rugby at Petersfield RFC from under-six to under-12 and Field are now looking to encourage these girls to stay with the club as they move up through the age groups.

As the overall numbers of girls playing is currently below that of the boys, the age groups are often combined into three bands; under-13, under-15 and under-18. These bands comprise the under-11s to under-13s, under-14s to under-15s and under-16s to under-18s.

Petersfield Rugby Club run touch-rugby sessions every Wednesday evening at 7pm. These sessions are open for all, and the girls’ coaching team will be present every Wednesday in July to meet new players, take them through the basics and introduce them to the club.