Despite being ranked second internationally as the Women’s Rugby World Cup tournament kicks off in England and gaining popularity year over year, Canadian women’s rugby heavily lacks specific research, and borrows heavily from the men’s game, according to researchers.
As of 2021, there were 2.7 million female players globally, a 25 per cent increase over four years. By 2023, participation in women’s rugby was growing at a rate of 38 per cent per year, according to a UCalgary article.
Among those trying to change the course of injury knowledge in women’s rugby is Dr. Kathryn Dane.
Dane, a native of Ireland, is an Eyes High postdoctoral scholar with the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre (SIPRC) in the Faculty of Kinesiology. Before shifting to the research side of the sport, Dane competed nationally for the Irish women’s rugby team.
“To be able to use my experiences as a physio, a player, and a coach to perform my research on tackle safety… was really cool,” Dane said.
“It really did motivate me to try and highlight that disconnect between clinical, best practices, coaching and realities of interventions in that female side of the game.”
Currently, Dane is specializing in adolescent rugby, the part of the sport experiencing the most growth. Dane said that teenage women are a population that researchers, coaches and trainers need to be focused on protecting and making sure they have long, enjoyable careers in rugby.
“Within my work here at University of Calgary, I’ve been lucky to rub shoulders with some experts in video analysis, epidemiology, biomechanics, physiology, and we’re really looking at this challenge of tackle safety from multiple lenses, which is just going to really improve the quality of the research and the outputs that we have in this space,” she said.
“We’re hoping that findings will hopefully have a public health impact.”
Research aims to inform best coaching practices, the standards of care, and hopefully some policy changes to support safer return for girls in sports, according to Dane.
Before her work with UCalgary, Dane used methods like player interviews, video analysis and safety benefits of recommended tackle techniques to explore safety in women’s rugby.
Dane then wrote three papers on the topic, winning paper of the year award for a story published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Rugby sees gendered discrepancy worldwide, says Dane
As a physiotherapist working with a men’s rugby team in Ireland, Dane learned the process of rehabilitation and concussion protocol.
“When I looked at the level of resources and care in the international women’s setup, I saw a bit of a disconnect and a few gaps in places,” she said.
“Historically, girls and women have to play catch-up and have been largely excluded from the development and safety research.”
Because of their exclusion from development and safety research, women’s rugby lacks access to safe training for specific medical care and tailored injury prevention, according to Dane.
“I thought this would be a great way for me to use my research to help understand these gaps and work with rugby partners,” she said.
Research aside, gender norms cause some women to be inherently disadvantaged in the sport.
“It’s a pretty complex sport, and the skill of tackling itself is very challenging, so boys and men have a head start, because they get to practice this unique skill from a younger age,” Dane said.
“Women aren’t really encouraged to rough and tumble when they’re growing up.”
Canada’s men’s and women’s rugby teams are both in action this weekend, with the men playing host to team USA in a World Cup qualifier at McMahon Stadium Friday night, and the women opening the 2025 World Cup against Fiji Saturday morning.
