Sarah Rendell takes a weekly look at some important women players
THIS WEEK…
WASPS CENTRE
Wasps captain Kate Alder started her rugby journey after being encouraged to go to a training session by her father, Trev. She followed in his footsteps after he played the sport for years.
While she loved rugby it wasn't always easy to access it. After her first club, Clevedon, went under, she had to keep moving further afield to track down a team to play for.
“When I was growing up women's rugby wasn't like it is now, you kind of went wherever you could play,” the 27- year-old said. “After Clevedon I moved to a place called Yatton. Again a similar situation happened, that all went a bit quiet, so I moved to Weston and played for Hornets.
“Alongside all of that I played for Somerset and South West South. Back then the South West was split into two because it was so sparse. Then the boundaries changed so I went from being North to South.
“My poor dad went from driving me 20 minutes up the road to Bristol for a training session to two hours down to Plymouth.
“Sometimes we trained for an hour so it was a four hour trip for an hour's training. We spent a lot of time on the A30 and the A38 growing up!”
Throughout her career Alder has seen the women's game develop and is happy it is so accessible now.
“I remember my mum dropping me off for a training session at Portway in Bristol and I was the only girl. I think there was about 44 guys in this session and I had to go and beg somebody to open the female toilets because they were like ‘what are you doing here?',” Alder laughed.
“So now the fact the girls have got choices, they can play locally or they can play for the clubs that their brother, dad or mum played at is amazing. Everything is going in the right direction for sure.”
Alder went on to play for Exeter University and when she graduated she moved to Premier 15s side Wasps. The club are currently fourth but they have a challenging few weeks ahead as they face defending champions Saracens and then Exeter Chiefs.
“I think every team has chinks in their armour. One thing we're really trying to do at Wasps is focus on us,” the outside centre added. “I think in previous years we have been so caught up in what Sarries are doing, what Quins are doing that maybe we've either over-thought it or overanalysed.
“So this year it's all about worrying what we're doing in training and trying to focus a little bit less on those other teams as it could go either way. It doesn't put us in a good stead worrying about what they're up to.”
