Momentum growing for a female Lions tour

British & Irish Lions boss Ben Calveley believes a women’s side under the revered touring brand is only a matter of time as a feasibility study into its viability gets underway in the coming weeks.

Managing director Calveley was talking in Cape Town before the 2021 Lions headed home from their Test series defeat to the Springboks and said the historic touring rugby organisation wanted to join the growing bandwagon being generated behind the women’s game.

Royal London, corporate partners of the men’s tour to South Africa this summer, are backing the feasibility study having come on board as the first principal partner of the Women's Lion Programme with Ireland international Claire Molloy as one of its ambassadors. 

The study will canvass the opinions of existing Lions stakeholders, broadcast partners and other interest groups to explore amongst other issues, when a first tour may take place and which countries should be considered as opponents.

“We have always said that it’s a case of when not if when it comes to the women’s Lions,” Calveley said. “We think that women’s sport generally is riding something of a crest of a wave and that’s true of women’s rugby as well. We would hope to be a part of that.

“We are launching a feasibility study looking into how you can make a women’s team viable, where it fits into the overall cycle, who might you play against, when might you play and so on and so forth. We have launched that feasibility study, we will carry that over the second half of this year, and then we will bring forward some recommendations. It is certainly something we are looking at very, very seriously.” 

Also to be considered is whether a women’s Lions tour would run in tandem with the existing men's schedule and model of visiting Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in rotation every four years, although Canada, France, and the USA feature prominently in the World Rugby rankings currently led by England with the South Africans not considered a genuine force at 13th in the standings.

"That's what the feasibility study will look at,” Calveley added. “We'll make no assumptions before we do the study. We wouldn't assume if there was to be a women's tour that it would have to happen at the same time as the men or at the same location as the men.

“It could be a completely different model. We have a blank sheet of paper. We'll get a group of experts to talk this through and see if we can come up with a solution that works best for the women's game. But all of those recommendations will be made off the back of the feasibility study that will take place over the second half of this year."