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Women’s BUCS Super Rugby Competition to take place in 2024-2025
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Seven-team competition will kick-off on Friday 13 September
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Support from BUCS’s partners AHDB and home nations NGBs to elevate competition
British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) is today delighted to announce the launch of Women’s BUCS Super Rugby for the 2024-2025 season.
The seven-team competition is a positive evolution of the Women’s National League (WNL) and joins the top level of Men’s rugby union as BUCS’ second ‘Super’ level of competition. Women’s BUCS Super Rugby will provide an enhanced platform to aid female players at institutions in England, Wales and Scotland to develop their game alongside pursuing higher education.
Women’s BUCS Super Rugby will include introduction of a three-team set of match officials to each fixture, increased access to live stream coverage and more resource directed towards profiling the impact our institutions, their players and practitioners have on the professional game.
The support of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has greatly helped enable this new platform for top-level women’s sport and brings increased parity to the female game.
The ongoing relationship between BUCS and AHDB highlights the numerous benefits of milk to young students involved in sport through the Milk Every Moment campaign. This will be the title sponsor of the Men’s and Women’s BUCS Super Rugby Milk Championships, the knockout competition that culminates in early 2025 with a showpiece finals day featuring both fixtures.
BUCS has worked in close partnership with England Rugby, Scottish Rugby and the Welsh Rugby Union to shape the programme, which aims to significantly add to the 26 players who have graduated to senior international rugby after competing in the WNL.
Cardiff University, Cardiff Met University, Durham University, The University of Edinburgh, The University of Exeter, Hartpury University and Loughborough University will compete in the inaugural season.
Will Roberts, BUCS CEO said: “I’m thrilled that Women’s BUCS Super Rugby will take place for the first time this coming season, illustrating our efforts as an organisation to strive for equality in our competition.
“This has been the realisation of years of hard work to create a competition which attracts some of the best young rugby talent to take part in university sport and is in line with our strategic theme of driving participation through high-quality, co-designed and inclusive competitions.
“I’d like to personally thank our National Governing Body (NGB) partners for their ongoing support, and AHDB, whose Milk Every Moment campaign has allowed us to take this final step.”
Paul Flanagan, Dairy Sector Director at AHDB added: “We are strong supporters of women’s sport and are delighted that Milk Every Moment is helping to facilitate this move to a higher-level competition. By working together, we are keen to showcase the important role milk can play in supporting young people’s sport and fitness goals.”
Over 90 female players so far have come through the Women’s National League system and gone on to play in top-flight competition (Premiership Women’s Rugby and Celtic Challenge), including Emma Sing (Hartpury), Gwen Crabb (Cardiff Met) and Meryl Smith (Edinburgh).
The Women’s BUCS Super Rugby competition gets underway on Friday 13 September with a showpiece fixture between Edinburgh and defending champions Hartpury at The Hive, Murrayfield.
BUCS will stream the fixture for free through a new BSR focussed YouTube channel, and you can continue to follow both the Men’s and Women’s competitions throughout the 2024-2025 season on social media.
