The 2022 Women’s Six Nations can be the start of something special

A debate that has raged for years in women’s rugby will come to an end this weekend. The Women’s Six Nations finally has its own permanent solo window in the calendar, and with it comes a chance to forge its own identity, removing its grip from the coattails of the men’s championship, a reliance on which was once vital but had started to suffocate.

As the women’s competition continued to grow in popularity both with live crowds and TV audiences, bumping up against men’s and under-20s fixtures – all vying for broadcast slots and favourable kick-off times over the same spring weekends – had become untenable. And while the change is a very welcome one, it would be remiss not to recognise just how important the competition in its previous guise has been to the development of the women’s game.

When discussions began in the mid-1990s between the mostly amateur women’s unions in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England about establishing more regular Test matches, a version of the men’s championship was already well over 100 years old, having begun life as a Home Nations championship in 1883. It would be nice to say that the women’s championship sprung into life and made up for all that lost time. In reality it stuttered for years, with Ireland dropping in and out, France and Spain joining, and then the Spanish being elbowed out to make way for Italy so that the women’s competition could align with the men.

But a protected window in which to play guaranteed Test matches while the women’s game was still getting off the ground around the world was a luxury, and one not afforded to anyone outside of Europe’s top tier, with teams like New Zealand and Australia often barely playing at all between World Cups. To that end, the Six Nations