Premier 15s set for record-breaking final as league enters ‘new era’

For Belinda Moore, installed as the chief executive of the Allianz Premier 15s in January, these have been a busy six months. In the fast-moving women’s sporting landscape, these are both exciting and challenging times to be at the very forefront of growth. As audiences boom and interest swells, setting a long-term strategy to enable sports to continue to thrive is trickier than might first appear, administrators having to navigate an ever-evolving picture that can rapidly prove projections or predictions folly.

Like football and cricket in recent years, the running of the English domestic game is set for an overhaul as women’s rugby moves towards a professional future. Until now, the English top tier has been operated by the Rugby Football Union (RFU), but ahead of next season, Moore will take over in a new role as the head of a limited company that will run what is commonly accepted as the world’s best domestic women’s rugby competition.

While the RFU will still input where required, the league will operate with greater autonomy, with Moore in charge of the overall direction. A highly respected figure within sport, she is a good fit in a vital role – Moore arrives with vast experience that includes stints at the British Olympic Association and European Tour, and is a passionate rugby fan and coach with significant expertise of the current broadcasting and governance picture.

Next week will see the league relaunched, with new branding and messaging to be unveiled as the Premier 15s prepares to enter what Moore describes as a “new era”.

Two ambitious new teams, Ealing and Leicester Tigers, will join for a 2023-24 season that promises to be the most competitive yet. While broadcast and sponsorship deals are yet to be fully sorted, a busy phone and a chance to burnish the brand of a league ready to go from strength to strength encourage Moore.

“I’ve been blown away by the number of sponsors and broadcasters that have wanted to come and have proactive conversations,” she explains to The Independent in the week of the Premier 15s final between Gloucester-Hartpury and Exeter Chiefs. “It is not us reaching out, it is them reaching out in the last few months.

“I think the broadcasting landscape is quite exciting. There are a number of players now in the market in the position to take on women’s sport perhaps in a way it wasn’t previously. It is a really good time to be out in the marketplace. What is on the pitch now is a really strong product that viewers want to engage with and want to see.”

The women’s game has in many ways represented the light peaking through the shadows cast in a dark year for the men’s game. There is hope that women’s rugby can learn from the mistakes made during the first professionalisation of the sport, with player involvement and a joined-up approach among Moore’s key tenets.

“It’s hugely important that the game is financially sustainable,” she notes. “We need to be realistic about where we are. I think it is a collaborative league, and it is important we all rise together. Nobody wants a difficult season. It is making sure that it is done at a sensible and sustainable level.

“We’ve got the Rugby World Cup in England in 2025 and we are very conscious of that being a potential milestone in our development. This gives us two years to be really robustly set up before we hit that.

“But 2025 is fundamentally really important, and we can’t pretend otherwise. It will be the shop window for the sport that we won’t have had before and potentially won’t have for a while afterwards. The signs at the minute are really, really positive, so I hope in three years we’ll have outperformed where we thought we would be.”

First, though, comes the final final of the first Premier 15s era. Perhaps reflecting the league’s own transformation over these last couple of years, both Gloucester-Hartpury and Exeter will be seeking a first title on Saturday afternoon, the two teams that topped the regular season table surviving tough semi-finals against Bristol and Saracens respectively.

Gloucester-Hartpury have been the story of the season. Nicknamed “The Circus”, they have been led brilliantly by Natasha ‘Mo’ Hunt, the best player in the league during this campaign, while summer investment in a heavyweight group of forwards has also paid off. Gloucester will also have the benefit of a partisan crowd, with their home ground retitled Queensholm for the showpiece decider.

But this could equally be termed Exeter’s time. Susie Appleby’s side were the beaten finalists last time around and have two cups already in their trophy cabinet. Exeter’s cosmopolitan squad has been procured from almost every corner of the rugby world but has been further bolstered this year by a handful of budding home starlets, with scrum-half Flo Robinson, flanker Maisy Allen and wing Katie Buchanan among them.

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In terms of pure numbers, this will be the biggest final yet, live on the BBC and BT Sport and watched by a record crowd, too. Of course, it helps that the Gloucester faithful have a home side for which to roar but last year’s attendance figure for the final could be trebled with a fair wind and a few late walk-ups.

“What we are seeing now is a really exciting growth in the interest in women’s rugby,” Moore says. “You saw that in some of the TV viewing figures around the World Cup final, the day at Twickenham a couple of months ago. You can start to see the growth coming.

“It’s almost like being on the edge of a springboard and waiting to dive in to this huge opportunity that waits ahead of us. It is about making sure that we absolutely capitalise upon it for the good of the sport. I can’t wait.”