Cold War bunker helping women's rugby on the road to parity

South Wales Argus

a day ago

A Cold War bunker in Oxfordshire is helping the Women's Rugby World Cup achieve parity with the men's game.
While World Rugby have a target of achieving equality at men's and women's World Cups by 2033, the 2025 tournament in England will see the medical services match those at the men's editions.
That includes investing in state-of-the-art equipment, with portable X-rays set to be used for the first time in the women's game in England, having first been brought in for the men's World Cup in France in 2023.
The medical equipment is now making its way to the match venues and teams as they arrive in the country for the tournament. Previously, it was all stored at an 'eerie' airbase near Bicester.
'Until I turned up, I didn't know it was a Cold War bunker,' tournament medical director Dr Jo Larkin said. 'There is this place called Upper Heyford, it is a bit like a random purpose-built town, and it feels eerie or like you are in a movie.
'You drive through and you turn into a Cold War bunker, and there are loads of them. It is a great space, it is quite unique.
'That is where we have got all of our kit, and the kit has taken up over a third of space in there. It is a huge amount.
'We have got rows and rows of kit, and every kit goes on a roadshow around the country. We have got four kits moving around, but we've also agreed to provide the teams with their medical kit, their trauma kit.
'It has been a lot of packing, three and a bit days in total, with lots of audit checks. This will be going around the whole country.'
Larkin is returning to women's rugby, having started her career working with the then-amateur Red Roses side.
She moved into the men's game and has since worked in tennis and sailing, as well as practising clinically.
Larkin added: 'It is all about prioritising player care and management.
'When I started off in the women's game, and was flicking between the men's and women's, I used to really struggle because this is a person, a human being. I don't care what their genetics are, they should get the same medical care.
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'They finally are, which is amazing because when I first started off my journey, I would have a different experience from when I was working with the men's and the women's.
'I am proud to say we are prioritising player welfare, and we are prioritising both male and female players the same way.'
The commitment to equal treatment for male and female players comes as World Rugby Chief Medical Officer Professor Éanna Falvey revealed that women in rugby are much more proactive in engaging with medical insight.
The take-up for the new smart mouthguards with LED lights, which detect head impacts, is almost universal, with the only players at the Rugby World Cup not set to wear them having braces.
Meanwhile, the take-up rate for male players wearing smart mouthguards is around 85 per cent.
Falvey said: 'I have to take my hat off to the women's players. If men were as forethinking and as accepting of change and research as women, we would be a lot further along the road in the men's game as well.
'The women's game has been phenomenal in grabbing any information they can get, grabbing any opportunity they can get to advance their game, and it has been brilliant to work with the game as a whole.
'It sounds like a generalisation, but it is a fact that anybody who has been in the game has seen.'
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