Ealing Trailfinders Women: Building a Premier 15s team from the ground up

The next iteration of the Allianz Premier 15s is now set, with two new faces joining, two teams leaving and two more set to stay around to complete a ten team league, presuming they each complete conditions set by the RFU.

For most of the already established Premier 15s teams, it’s back to business as usual, but for newbies Ealing Trailfinders and Leicester Tigers comes the opportunity to create entirely new set ups from scratch.

Ealing Trailfinders Women have sensibly looked to one of the Premier 15’s most successful coaches to lead and build their set up, Giselle Mather having led Wasps Women to the semi-finals multiple times and built a brand of fast, free flowing but defensively sound rugby that was a joy to watch.

“It’s a really unique opportunity,” Mather tells me when asked of the task in front of her. “I have something directly in front of me on my board – a mnemonic that says UNIQUE – so every time I look up I know I am building something unique and that I am very privileged to be able to do that.

“The club is hugely committed, not just to having girls here, but to doing this in the best way they can. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that every time I come up with an idea the response is ‘Yeah, go for it!’ Usually, the team here will add more to my suggestions. It’s a really ambitious and vibrant place.”

With the passion of Mather and the support she is clearly receiving it would be easy to question why Trailfinders didn’t look to join the Premier 15s earlier. “Back in 2019, ahead of the last tender process, Ealing Trailfinders wanted to be a part of it but knew they weren’t ready. What they did was set up a pathway. They went to Henley College and Brunel University – where there are already boys’ programmes – and started programmes for girls.

“I don’t mean they just added it on, I have my own set of staff at Brunel, and my own staff at Henley. We already have four England under 18s who were named in the most recent squad, and Henley has only been running a couple of years. Brunel haven’t lost a game in the BUCS league since they joined.”

“Steve Borthwick (England men’s head coach) talked about youth and experience when he announced his first England squad. We are looking for that blend and I have the opportunity to create something special and unlike most coaches build something from the ground up. Will I get everything I want? Of course not, but if I raise my standards, I have the opportunity to build something special, not for instant and immediate results – though we want that too – but I’m looking for a sustainable environment that athletes really want to be involved in.

“Ealing Trailfinders Women has been built from the roots out to the tip. When we joined the Premier 15s with Wasps we had to go from the top first, because we had to get first teams up and ready to compete. For a while we had the development league and then that was dropped, and not long later Covid hit and affected the pathways even more. So here we are building out from the roots, as things naturally grow, so we have an amazing pathway system that combines education with rugby, which is something I am passionate about from my time in the ACE (Academy, Colleges and Education) environment at London Irish.

“Not every player will make it to elite sport, and you have to be prepared for that, so it’s important to link the two.”

For anyone who’s been to Ealing’s club grounds, where the first ever Premier 15s final was played out, it’s an impressive set up, with the club standing out as the team with the most comprehensive pathway set up, or at least the most visible one.

So, what’s established is that there will be a pipeline but all that young talent will need some battle-hardened guidance if Trailfinders Sports Ground is to see some victories early on. Mather has always sprinkled her teams with talent from outside England with her Wasps line-ups always having a group of gifted Irish players to support the homegrown core.

“I’m not after bringing in the whole world, although there will be some [players from other nations and leagues] because I believe if you were to write down your ideal, you’d have international players involved. When you bring in athletes from different countries they bring a different way of doing things – they challenge and they set standards. That then challenges any Red Roses you might have in your team.”

Calling upon Red Roses is another clear aspiration for Ealing Trailfinders Women. “I’m an ex-Red Rose – what we call now a vintage Rose – myself, so of course I want Red Roses in my team. I’m passionate about England doing well and I want to bring athletes through. I used to do England under 20s when Emily Scarratt, Vicky Fleetwood, Marlie Packer, Mo Hunt and all of that group still playing now were coming through. Watching them develop their careers has been wonderful and now we have the opportunity to do that for players here.”

The sense of opportunity is palpable when speaking to Mather and she beams as she considers the possibilities ahead. “Am I going to have the model spot-on on day one? No! But I’m aware of that. We’ll review and move forward. The attitude here is to go for it, and then refine and improve as we progress.”

So where does a team find talented, experienced, high-end individuals to support their pathway players and to put the team on the front foot from day one? For Mather, the answer was obvious and thus, she found herself in New Zealand for the World Cup.

“When has a Premier 15s club sent their Director of Rugby that far afield to scout? That’s what I was there to do; to watch, to scout, to see. I went to the first two pool rounds so I got to see all 12 nations play twice. The standard across the games was so high. I was watching South Africa against Fiji and it was like a game of sevens. Insane, but awesome to watch. I had been in the South Africa camp in the week to watch them train and what happened in that game wasn’t part of the plan, it was breath-taking.

“The team I’ll have is being put together from scratch, and I have a blank sheet in front of me with the instruction to go out and build!” she tells me when I ask around the coaching set up.

“I will have a very comprehensive team around me. I wish it was the same for everyone across the league. I go to do things now and have people saying to me ‘why are you doing that? That’s what we’re here to do’. When I think about all the things I had to do at Wasps… I had some amazing staff but they weren’t full time so when they were in they had to maximise their time with the team.

“We got by and did the best we could, the team did amazing things. But the opportunity here is to have a fully staffed pathway, for our Premier 15s staff to be experts in their area rather than jacks of all trades. The time to become an expert, to review all the games, to ask questions and dig deep to become an expert and to better support our players – all that will be to our benefit.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking Mather’s new role sounds like more of an office job as a leader, rather than out on the field, but don’t dare tell her that. “I’ll still be coaching too, because I can’t let that go… it’s my lifeblood. The DoR stuff I am learning and growing all the time, but actually… being out on the field is special and I can’t let that go quite yet.”

West London is rich with high quality clubs and players. Harlequins Women have won the Allianz Premier 15s, Wasps might have struggled lately but were one of the forces of the league in its early years and while Richmond might have dropped down to Championship 1 they’re still going well, as are London Irish Emeralds who were promoted into that league this season. There’s a ready-made crop of players in the area and that can only help with recruitment in the short term, but long term, Ealing Trailfinders want to become self-sufficient.

“We have our Places of Development – Pods – mainly focused on the under 18s, we have four clubs at the moment who we support with finding coaches, facilities etc. That generates grassroots players falling in love with the game. We have Henley and we work with some other local clubs in order to loan out players. The programme we have at Brunel means our players are growing their skills so quickly and the league they are in within BUCS isn’t quite at the right level. These girls are winning every week by 70 or 80 points – they should be playing against the likes of Exeter and Hartpury. It’s something we are looking into, but that process is working and those athletes are already working with local clubs.

“My aspiration in four to five years is that our pathway is producing 80% of our squad and it will be amazing when we start to achieve that!”

It’s a lovely aspiration and it would be phenomenal to see. There’s a more immediate target for Mather though. “For our first game here at Trailfinders Sports Ground I want to see 2,000 people watching. We’ve got some work to do!”

I wouldn’t bet against this group achieving it though, Mather is irrepressible, and Ealing Trailfinders is committed to driving their women’s team to the very top.