Sawt Falasteen - Trailblazing rugby chief Griffin proud of 'incredible' strides for women's game

Hosts England take on Canada in London on Saturday after a five-week tournament that has boosted the profile of the women's game.

Griffin, a former amateur player, said her exalted position and the Twickenham sell-out were "both quite incredible things to happen, and probably not before time".

Women's rugby in England was not even part of the RFU's remit when Griffin played her first match in 1978.

The notion of a woman president was unthinkable to the officials who ran what was then an amateur, male-dominated game.

"I went to university at University College London, went out with a guy who played rugby, so was watching him play and then a group of us decided to challenge our varsity rivals, King's College London, to a game of women's rugby," Griffin told AFP.

"And, you know, I just came off the field, thought: 'God, that was the best thing I'd done'. I loved it, and then just wanted to encourage other universities to start playing, and that's how it began."

Griffin, who was initially a scrum-half before moving to centre, helped establish the Women's Rugby Football Union in 1983 and was one of four women who organised the inaugural 1991 Women's Rugby World Cup in Wales.

"It was my idea," recalled Griffin. "I did a paper (proposal) for the WRFU and I just thought it would be really good to bring everybody together."

While the RFU helped bail out the fledgling tournament, officials at the International Rugby Board, the forerunner of World Rugby, were far from enthused.

"With the IRB, or World Rugby, a couple of times I got called in to be told that we shouldn't be doing what we were doing," said Griffin. "But the WRFU wasn't part of World Rugby, so they didn't really have anything to say to us."

A sign of how things have changed is that the Soviet team at the 1991 World Cup attempted to finance their trip by bartering goods, including vodka.

"It was a time when you couldn't bring any money out of Russia, so they brought a lot of things to sell, which was obviously not to Customs and Excise's pleasure," said Griffin as she recalled the reaction of UK tax authorities.

- 'Full circle' -

Griffin was speaking on Friday to AFP at her club, Richmond, a short distance from Twickenham in southwest London.

"I'm back at my club," said Griffin, who last month took over as the first woman president of the RFU in its 154-year history. "And I'm secretary here now, so it's brilliant, it has come full circle."

Saturday's crowd at Twickenham should comfortably surpass the 58,498 who watched England beat France at there in the 2023 Six Nations -- the previous record for a women's 15-a-side match.

"It makes me feel very proud that I was there at the beginning and, at different points in time, I've sort of helped push it along," said Griffin.

She said she was getting "more and more nervous" for the top-ranked and now fully professional Red Roses as they prepare to face underdogs Canada in a repeat of the 2014 final won by England.

The Maple Leafs are fresh from an impressive 34-19 semi-final victory over defending champions New Zealand.

"Of course I want England to win, but I'm trying to keep calm," Griffin said. "Canada are not a dark horse. They're number two in the world."

Regardless of the outcome, Griffin believes that this World Cup has already been a step change for women's rugby, with the tournament beamed across the world.

"I think it (rugby) will continue to grow, because it is a fabulous sport," she said. "I just want more and more people to play the game and enjoy it like I have."

V.AbuAwwad--SF-PST