In the wake of the national ThisGirlCan campaign for promoting women in Sport, England rugby league star and Leeds Rhinos Foundation Women and Girls Development Officer, Lois Forsell discusses her background in Sport and the potential of rugby league.
So how did you first get into sport?
I’ve always been quite sporty from a young age, I liked it at primary school and actually the first sport I started playing was football, but my brother played rugby at East Leeds. I would often go down after a training session to pick my brother up and if they were playing bulldogs or a small sided game and needed an extra player they would ask me to get involved, so I joined in and quit football not long after and have been playing rugby ever since. I still played lots of other sports at school like netball but obviously rugby has been my main sport and the sport that I have loved ever since I started playing it.
Did you have any role models when you were starting out in sport?
My mum was a big role model for me, she was quite sporty growing up but never really got the opportunities i’ve had, although those opportunities are getting better now as time has moved on, she never got those opportunities, although I knew she was sporty herself. So my mum was determined to provide me with those opportunities as I liked to play so much. When I used to play down at East Leeds I always remember there being a Great Britain women’s player down there, so I always thought it was good to see her train and see where she had come from, but really just other women in sport, you would often think ‘that would be something I’d like to aspire to and achieve.’
You have now gone as far as representing England along with playing for one of the elite women’s teams in Bradford, how special was that experience for you?
It was really special, I played for Yorkshire from under 14’s upwards in all the age groups and Yorkshire really kept me going and wanting to achieve more in the sport. I was waiting a while for the England call up and when it finally came it was incredibly special. I was still quite young, I think I was only 17 at the time and I’ve been involved ever since. Each game had its own special meaning, like when I went out to France and played abroad for the first time, definitely the first time I went to New Zealand aged 18 or 19 as well, and then obviously the World Cup in England where we played those teams again on our own turf, they are all great memories and very special.
How do you manage to fit your rugby playing at that level alongside your work with the Leeds Rhinos Foundation?
It’s difficult but you can always find time to do something, it’s like our coach Chris Chapman says, you can fit something in at home when watching TV even, during an ad break doing some planking or core work, but I’m quite lucky I can use the gym facilities here if needed after work, so I tend to go Monday to Friday after work or I fit a session in during the weekend if I’m busy during the week, the job sometimes sees me busy every night of the week in some cases, so I just have to adjust and try and go on the mornings instead.
Compared to when you were growing up, do you feel like there are more opportunities for girls today?
From my point of view obviously rugby-wise I think the schools now are getting a really good service and girls’ schools rugby is really improving. Just last year for Tag rugby we had something like 16 schools entered and playing tag at year 5 and 6 and this year we’ve already got 18 schools and that won’t be starting until June so could rise even more with other teams entering.
With the high school stuff especially, I remember one of my teachers tried to get us to do some touch rugby on the AstroTurf and I was really excited about it because it was my sport, but the other girls weren’t as interested in it, so after that we didn’t get offered anything else.
We didn’t have anyone from the outside coming in and coaching like the Leeds Rhinos Foundation are doing, delivering sessions and I think that is massive for the girls today, someone different coming into the school they seem to really enjoy. They are now realising that it’s not just for the boys anymore and they might enjoy it as much as anyone else and I think that’s the reason for it growing as much as it currently is.
Rugby has many formats now, such as tag, touch and full contact, from a coaching point of view, what does rugby league offer as a sport for young girls coming through now?
Primary Schools are currently focussing on tag rugby which is a great introduction. We provide girls only rugby because I think with the nature of sport you’re always going to get the young boys being more boisterous than the girls and have a bit more knowledge from being taught at a younger age and at clubs. Not girls it’s not as popular to play at clubs or with boys, hopefully that will start improving but the girls only format allows more to be involved and there is no one who is miles ahead of anyone else in terms of ability so with that they all improve together.
For high schools we are doing touch rugby now, especially at this time of the year with the weather we are teaching indoor touch rugby and we’ve had three tournaments so far this year and the girls have been fantastic.
Yesterday I had my first session with a group of year 7’s at 9am and we had told them to come along to a tournament that was happening that afternoon at 3pm if they wanted to try it. So having only had one lesson, many had only ever played rugby that morning but they turned up and threw a jersey on and had a go, so that sort of thing is great to see, just girls giving rugby a try.
What would you say are the biggest obstacles for girls getting into sport today?
It’s a difficult question but I think again from a rugby point of view, with things like touch rugby, we are removing some of those obstacles because girls can get involved and if they want to progress to full contact rugby they can do, but if they don’t there are now programmes where they can stay involved with local touch rugby for mixed genders so they can continue playing social rugby that way.
Often girls get to age 14 and become interested in other things besides sport and it’s about how can we keep them engaged and I think engaging them earlier and giving them a role model with their teachers and family that would certainly help.
What would you like to see in say five years’ time with regards to girls Rugby Development?
For me, and again this is for rugby league in Leeds under our 3 year development plan, which I think has improved the game so much over the last year or so, we’ve got touch rugby going and primary tag rugby going. We’ve got a league that starts in February for year 9 and 10 girls, with 11 teams running week in week out. In five years’ time we would like to have larger impact with the clubs I think, club rugby is where it’s difficult for girls, you have to get them there initially and then keep them there, so we are hoping to facilitate that and increase that excitement of rugby league for young girls to keep them there and give them enough opportunities to stay there, so hopefully the work we are doing the high schools and primary schools will benefit the community game and keep them supported as much as we can.