The Forester last week presented a report on England’s Women’s great victory in the Women’s Rugby World Cup final, and the part that local players played.

Five of the squad were from Hartpury University, which has joined with Gloucestershire rugby to create the formidable Gloucester Hartpury team, which formed that basis of the successful English XV.

Women’s rugby has now achieved a standing in the world of sport that was not perhaps been acknowledged before. The final of the World Cup was a hard won match between England and a brave but outgunned Canada side, which in spite of an early try could not cope with the power of the English women.

The scrum seemed to be evens at the start, but eventually England came out on top. To me the power of the England scrum was the key to England’s victory, but there was an extraordinary contribution by winger Ellie Kildunne, who scored in the tournament a couple of the most sensational tries ever seen.

With 2 or more defenders against one attacker, the advantage is definitely with the defence. Except when the attacker is Ellie Kildunne, who completely deceived the defenders with the most extravagant side steps.

Changes in the rugby union ‘laws’ (never called ‘rules’), have made the game more interesting and less elitist over the last 50 years or so, to make possible these memorable tries. When I started playing the game, the outside half’s first instinctive thought was to kick the ball into touch to gain territory The poor winger would often be standing at the end of the back line, shivering in the cold and rain, with a role restricted to throwing ball in at the line out, before hookers took that responsibility.

You could kick to touch from anywhere on the pitch, and the line out would always be where the ball went into touch, not where the ball was kicked from, so you could usually gain some ground while the winger shivered at the end of the back line. Tries were worth the same as drop goals, which are rarely heard of now. A try was originally just an opportunity to try for a goal (or conversion).

There were only 3 points for a try, so it made sense to kick for goal rather than to go for a try when a penalty was awarded. Even with a successful conversion, there were only 5 points available. Points for tries were eventually raised to 4 then 5 to encourage open play, and players to seek tries rather than to wait for the opposition to commit an offence in a goal kickable position. The game was elitist, except in the Forest, where local rugby and the combination cup were part of the local sporting culture.

In the 1960s, Rugby League was gaining in popularity, Eddy Waring being the famous commentator. In this game there were no laborious scrums which needed continuous resetting, no inexplicable penalties awarded for technical offences, and no complicated line out laws. Elite players deserted union for league, without being too disconcerted by the instant banning from union. Welsh players seeking a break from the coal mines would take the money and go north, depriving the Wales XV of its best players.

Rugby Union got the message just in time, and legalised payments to players, reformed the laws to encourage try scoring, awarding more points for tries than for goals, and so resisted the advance of Rugby League, which was never allowed to escape as a professional game from the northern counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. They gave full support for women’s rugby.

Rugby Union then became a sport for everyone.