The UON women’s rugby team have nearly tripled their participation rates after hosting their “bring a friend” event at their training session last night, on October third. 

The aim of the event was to get more women from the university involved in rugby.

Last year, the women didn’t even have enough members to make up a full team, but now they have a squad of up to 30 players.

President, Carys Wellicome, said: “At the freshers fair, we had about 50 to 60 people sign up for the team, obviously not everyone turns up to training, but we’ve definitely seen an increase in the attendance, which is great for us!”

Wellicome also thinks that their previous number of players follows the national trend of a lack of women participating in male dominated sports, but is confident that this year will bring a change.

“It’s a sport that takes a lot of guts to play, but when you start playing you get a lot from it.”

Despite most of the team being new to the sport, the women will compete in their first fixture of the season on the sixth of December.

They also have hopes of entering into the BUCS League at Varsity next year.