Bulls Daisies set to make South African rugby history

In a first for women's rugby in South Africa, the Blue Bulls Company awarded 35 female rugby players professional contracts.

They will form part of the official women's team from Pretoria, the Bulls Daisies.

The Daisies will compete in the Inter-Provincial League set to start in March.

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With the full squad and coaching staff still to be announced, Thando Manana, Blue Bulls Company Special Projects Manager and High-Performance Women's Rugby Manager says the dream is for the women’s high-performance environment to be modelled on the successful one he saw during his two-week visit to the United Kingdom.

“I am grateful to Saracens, Harlequins and the Ealing Trailfinders Rugby Club for opening their doors to me, allowing me to spend time in their high-performance environment, studying the DNA of their setup and learning from their experience in terms of what has worked and what has not, as well as what served the development of women’s rugby over there and how we can adapt those key ingredients into what we are trying to achieve as the Bulls Daisies,” Manana said.

“Our ambitions are not to merely partake in competition but to establish a solid foundation where South African rugby stars will be produced, and I believe the groundwork we have laid over the last few months is already a step in the right direction.

"This is indeedan exciting time, and I hope that our rugby community will get behind us as we elevate women's rugby to the top," he added.

Blue Bulls Company CEO Edgar Rathbone said that the move to professionalise women's rugby was a landmark achievement whose success will have a ripple effect on the game from grassroots to