Rachel Taylor

She was a pioneer in the Welsh game. A fully professional, female coach of a national side. Rachel Taylor started the job in November but left the following March. A career with Wales that spanned three World Cups shouldn’t have ended like this. And it won’t. Not if the North Walian backrower has her way.

Four months have passed since former Wales captain Rachel Taylor left her dream job with Wales. The first professional national female coach in her home nation, she left in March, having only taken on the role in November the previous year. “It was a really difficult period of time,” she explains, “it still is. 

“It made my confidence waiver, on whether or not it was something I could do, but I’ve always been fortunate enough to have some really good people around me. 

“I wouldn’t have been able to get through this period of time, and stay within rugby, without that group. I’m pretty sure of that.”

While others have taken to social media on Rachel’s behalf, especially following the departure of head coach Warren Abrahams in July, Rachel is in a difficult position when it comes to discussing her former employer. “I can’t really,” she says, when asked about what she can say about specifics. “There was a press release from the WRU and I remember reading it, and it basically just said, ‘she just left’, which, you know, I thought was very interesting,” she says, pausing. “And obviously, you know, not correct in any way, shape, or form. 

“But yeah, hopefully, at some point, the situation will be resolved and we can kind of move forward from it. 

“The only thing I’ve said is that it felt right [to leave], I had stick to my own set of values and my own integrity. 

“It’s difficult when you’ve been a been a player and captain and I’m lucky to have the kind of network I have in Wales but it wasn’t right thing for me to stay in that role under the circumstances.” 

National Skills Coach for Wales should have been the perfect role for Bangor-born Rachel. She turned to coaching in 2015, initially as a community development officer in north Wales to help her bridge the gap to the international retirement she’d planned for post-Rugby World Cup 2017. She followed through, bringing an end to a decade of international rugby and 67 caps in the Wales second row and backrow, after her country’s Rugby World Cup seventh-place play-off game against Ireland, a 27-17 win. 

That win was scant consolation for a disappointing World Cup. In 2010, there were three defeats in a fierce group with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; in 2014, as captain, the pools brought defeats to Australia and France, but a win against South Africa; and in 2017, Canada and New Zealand had bettered Wales, before wins over Hong Kong and Ireland [in the placings], the latter her final cap.

It wasn’t how she thought her international win/loss ratio would look, Rachel had started her Wales career in a golden era. “The Wales side was super established, there were big names in that team, that been there for a long time – they were the core fifteen,” she says. “They had that victory against England at Taff’s Well [16-15, in 2009], and that came not because of the new players, but because they’d been together a long time and understood each other. 

“I played in that game [at lock], and in my whole career I’ve only beaten England twice and that was one of them, very early on.

“The wins over England were both pretty big days [the second came at St Helens [13-0 in 2015], an “unbelievable day”] but when you’re a newcomer to a team and you beat England, you probably think that stuff happens all the time, but it didn’t, and it definitely doesn’t. 

“But those [2009] players: Kifty [Jamie Kift], Non [Evans], Clare [Flowers], Naomi [Thomas], were people I looked up to at the time, so to see them do a job like that was pretty inspirational for me. I kind of assumed what we’d crack on and do it all the time, we had the players, we had the skillset to do it.”

That group had pushed Rachel on in a sport that she was born into, with her dad heavily involved in Colwyn Bay RFC. It was here that she played her first rugby until the inevitable break from the game aged twelve when mixed rugby was no longer allowed. “I dropped out of the game then,” she says. “It wasn’t until I was fifteen when my dad, who was chairman or president at the club – he’ll kill me if I get this wrong – was at the bar chatting to this woman who said she was playing over in England for Widnes, famous for rugby league, but there was a union team over there. 

“When I turned sixteen my dad took me over there to give it a go,” explains Rachel. “I remember my first game and, while we all talk about tough individuals from the valleys, there’s some tough individuals in the north of England too, I can tell you. 

“I played on the wing but in that very first game, there was a full-on brawl, fifteen versus fifteen.”

Finding her feet in union, she moved across to the fast-developing Waterloo. “They were kicking off,” says Rachel of the Merseyside-based  club. “A few of the North Wales-based Wales girls played for them and Jenny Davies – Treacle – used to take me over.

“There were some class players there at the time, what with it being Gill Burns’ home club,” she continues, “Rachel Brown, Kylie Wilson – some really good people to be around when you’re starting your career. 

“It was only because of the link with Waterloo that I found out about Wales, it sounds silly but I literally had never heard of the Wales women’s rugby team from being in North Wales, and I ended up winning my first cap was against Canada  in 2007, that was the start of it.

Back then, Clifton, in the top-flight of English rugby, provided a home for the core of the Welsh squad. “They did well within the English set-up, and then came back to the squad full of confidence, experience and a belief that [beating England] was something that was do-able, so at those points, the games felt a lot closer.

“Those players were well-known as well in England too which made a difference. The more recent fixtures and scorelines suggest that’s not what it is today.”

Uniquely, Rachel has played for all five regions in Wales. A combination of work and her rugby ambitions kept her on the move. Initially, she’d studied PE at Chester University – and also finding part-time work in a cake  factory. “If you wanted to know who was putting cherries on the Bakewell tarts back then, it could have been me,” she laughs. 

But she quit university after a year, deciding to pursue a career in veterinary nursing instead. “I loved the veterinary nursing, it gave me time to train and play rugby...”

That career choice would lead to her taking a tour of the regions. She turned out for Ospreys when work took her to South Wales; then Dragons when she was in Bristol; a charity match against the Army saw her wear Blues colours; and when she finally moved back to her native North Wales, it was first Scarlets, and then, when they were formed, RGC. “It wasn’t linear,” she says of her playing career, “I jumped around a lot.” 

Ironically the only straightforward  part of her playing career was the pathway to rugby international . “Once I was in the pathway, I understood it, there was clear line. We had an under-20s group, we trained out of the Welsh Institute for Sport, and I think it all felt a lot closer than what it does now.” 

“The progression of the league in England has created a massive gap,” she says. “When I moved down to South Wales – to work in a practice in Swansea – it was to further my rugby career, and I played for Cardiff Quins. We had a number of internationals, including England players like Amber [Penrith], it was a really high-quality team. 

“I knew I was getting good rugby there, but we were quite dominant, it was pre-regional rugby, and I felt that if I was going to be one of the best in the world rather than one of the best in Wales I needed to go and play in England, so I made the decision to move again and go and live and work in Bristol.”

This was before the World Cup in 2014. “At that time, they had Marlie Packer, Sarah Hunter, Claire Molloy, a backrow you’d want to be training with every day,” says Rachel. “I felt I needed to go there to get that challenge, I wasn’t having it week-in, week-out in Wales.

“That was a turning point in my career, I was physically and mentally stronger than I probably had ever been. Susie Appleby was at Bristol, a great coach, LJ [Lewis], a great forwards coach, I’d never had that level of coaching before.”

The arrival of regions for women, says Rachel, ‘felt like a big deal’, giving the women’s game a step in the direction of alignment, and another level of rugby, but the programmes were too short. “You had a limited time together, so it was more about putting you in the shop window for Wales selection than developing you as a player,” she says. “There probably was an aspiration to do both, but with limited contact time there’s only so much you could do.

“Having an opportunity to represent your region was big,” she admits. “I played for Ospreys and you could see what it meant to them, the same at Scarlets, it meant a massive deal for them to put on the jersey. And the time I had with RGC, with the political landscape in Wales and for us to be classed as a region, and for it to happen in the women’s game, was massive. It meant an awful lot for us to play. 

“We actually beat Scarlets in our first home game, and that is a moment that will last in the girls’ memories forever.”  

Ultimately though, the system doesn’t give enough game time to make a difference, meaning playing in England is the only way for consistent, high-level development.

“I don’t think the infrastructure is right [in Wales},” she says. “You can’t underestimate the pull of the English Prem for a player who wants to perform professionally. 

“To compare yourself against some of best in world, to train regularly with English, Irish and Scottish internationals ... if you do that, you’re going to put yourself in contention to play internationally. Players are always going to want to put themselves into that environment.”

Such is the professionalism of the Premiership, the WRU encouraged their World Cup contenders to play in the division resulting, according to the club’s official statement, in the demise of Swansea. It’s added more fuel to the fire that women’s Welsh rugby is falling further behind. “I don’t know what happened with age-grade [and why the under-20s stopped], but now I don’t know many of those players that have stayed in the game. 

“Chuck a global pandemic in there, when nobody plays the game for a couple of years, and that’s a really tough age group to keep engaged in rugby.

“No clear pathway, no games, a global pandemic – for any of them to come back would be a success. It’s a shame to think of who might have been lost.

“There’s a couple of community leagues, so people are playing,” she continues, “but the only real competitive league is the Prem, and now you’ve seen Swansea pull out of that, so it’s a concerning time.  

“I can imagine the key players in the WRU will be pretty concerned around how that looks for the game going forward, and where it happens.”

Rachel mulls over the options at regional level, from a more consistent programme with more regular fixtures to even the concept of a Welsh side joining the Allianz Premier 15s. 

“There were rumblings at some point about the idea of teams going to
play in English Prem, but that’s ringfenced now for a number of years – that would have been ideal. 

“We’ve got a small player pool, so one or two teams there, either as purely exiles or made up of Wales, Scotland and Ireland – that would be a cool opportunity.

“But without a core, competitive infrastructure within Wales, you’re never going to develop those players to want to go and play in that,” she says. “There needs to be a stepping stone to get to there. 

“Take Welsh girls playing under-15s now,” continues Rachel. “They have to think that their next step up is to join a university, so Gloucester-Hartpury, or Loughborough, somewhere like that. 

“That’s a massive step to move and play for one of those teams, a huge jump that will probably put a few people off doing that, so there needs to be an option in Wales.”

The gaping hole in the pathway in Wales, is only heightened by Rachel’s own experience of the English system as a player, before she’d even got involved with Wales. “I’d seen the pathway of the English girls,” she explains. “I’d done a bit with under-16, under-18, the students, even England touch – I’d been in all those things, and I thought, ‘God like this is ace’. I can remember the level of input that we had at sixteen years old and, having seen that snapshot, I assumed that’s how it would be with Wales. 

“I was in the same age group as Maggie [Alphonsi], Kim Oliver, so it was a good challenge, but I am Welsh – although my mum’s English so loved the fact I was involved, my dad was super proud but probably fuming inside – and so when Wales came along, it just felt right for me, more comfortable, and ultimately what I wanted. 

“But, having said that, I’m hugely grateful for the experience  that English set-up gave me. I remember playing counties, and for someone like me to rock up at the rugby club, and seeing all these county teams, fully kitted out, fully stocked, all playing on the same day, was huge. 

“I didn’t know that level of commitment to rugby existed at that point of my life, I didn’t know it was even there. It was a huge part in me developing my ambition, seeing what was out there and the growth of the game.”

The emotional pull of Wales is a strong one. “I guess we always feel a little bit like the underdog, and we always want to fight for it, being a smaller country with a smaller player pool spurs us on a little bit,” she says. “Ultimately you want to make it better for the next generation, that’s what we all wanted to do at the time, it wasn’t about us playing rugby, it was about making it better for the future.”

This is the crux of the story for Rachel, both the generation of players that were at the start of her international career and the one she played with throughout were all about what happened next. Whenever England made a step further into professionalism, Rachel was part of the conversations regarding what the response of Wales would be. “When the English girls were put on contracts a year out from the 2014 Rugby World Cup, there were conversations and a huge amount of pressure on unions to see if they were going to go professional or semi-professional, but nothing came of it, and in 2021, those same conversations are happening again. It’s difficult for the set of players they’ve got now.

“The juggling [of training and work] was the hardest thing,” she says. “I remember the prep for the 2017 World Cup was ridiculously intense, especially as I’d moved back to North Wales. I was travelling back to Cardiff three or four times a week, and you’d train, get back  at stupid o’clock, get up for work, get your active recovery in for that day, go to work, travel to Cardiff again – it was really tough.

“But we knew it was for a short of amount of time, so it was get your head down and you’ll make it. 

“I made the decision to retire in 2017 because I knew I wouldn’t go any further if I wasn’t a professional rugby player. I was 34 and you have to make that decision on whether your body can make that graft.

“Playing sevens and fifteens also take its toll as it gives you no period of time to recover, I’d had a decade of doing that without the full rest and recovery of a professional athlete.”

Although they recorded a 13-0 Six Nations victory over the newly crowned world  champions in 2015, Wales were falling behind England. “As a group we did have to ask ‘how do we bridge that gap?’,” she says. “But it was the subtle changes too, the opportunity to analyse the game, to do homework on your opponents, that kind of off-field stuff that time allows you to do.

“When you compare the physical aspects, you’ve got time to gym, recover, train, do speed training, and you know, suddenly, physically, those players really changed. And it put an extra pressure on us to be like, right, we’ve got to get in three gym sessions, two speed sessions, two conditioning sessions, and you’re doing this around travelling and, you know, it was just a massive amount of pressure. 

“I think a lot of us at that time thought – and I’m not saying that professionalism of the game is the holy grail by any means –  but I think we felt at that time, certainly between 2014 and 2017, ‘how do we compete against those teams?’.”

It wasn’t just England, France too were making the switch to professionalism in some form, and with the World Sevens Series kicking off, other nations such as Australia and New Zealand would have full-time athletes dropping from the abridged game back into fifteens ready for a World Cup. 

What is the solution? “I just think there needs to be a fully committed, investment into the women’s game,” she says. “We need to have a really open and honest assessment of where it is now. 

“Then it’s about the work from that review, with a full investment into trying to fix it, but also being aware that you can’t just fix stuff overnight. 

“I don’t think it’s going to be a case of ‘come up with one plan that just works, and we stick with that for the next you know, fifteen years’. 

“It has never been like that in the male game,” she continues. “I don’t know why we think we’ll do that in the women’s game, it’s always going to be trial and error. 

“If we keep holding off, waiting for this golden nugget of information to come, we’re never going to do anything. So, we have to do something, otherwise, we’re going turn so many people away from the game, and we’ll just create a bigger gap from ourselves and everybody else. 

“You see women’s sport now being followed and driven, and there’s choices now for women to go and do other things,” explains Rachel. “And I think there is a real moment where we could lose a lot of players from rugby, and to other sports. 

“I read a fascinating paper the other day of how it’s ‘boom time, again’, which was about how it always think there’s this massive growth of the game, but, actually, it stays status quo for ages, because no one actually does anything with it. 

“So we just kind of keep fooling ourselves into believing it’s a boom time again, and we should really capitalise on it.”

Wales has talent. Nant Conway in North Wales – previously featured in Rugby Journal – have embraced the local community and run full girls’ sides at age-grade levels. “If you could bottle what Nant Conway do, you’d want to give it to every club.

“They’ve kind of nailed it in terms of being a farming community and what works for them – they’re rural, family orientated. But you also think of the environment that it’s created for the girls there, they’ve played mixed rugby for a long time.

“It’s scary to think of how good some of those players could be in the right environment wrapped around them,” she concludes, “and I know that they’re not the only ones there.”

“Having worked the union as a community officer, I’ve seen there is so much potential, not just the female game, but the male game as well.

“There’s athletes out there that have the ability to be adaptable, to problem solve, which is what we’re looking for in the next international crop.

“They have that in abundance , and we just have to harvest it, and I think that’s probably one of the hardest things to watch is that we’re not doing that. And I don’t just mean the female you  know, that’s in the male game as well. Maybe we’re glossing over some of the stuff that’s super important.”

It’s the hope that got to them. “I can only really talk about the time when I was captain and had a lot of those conversations myself, around 2012, about how we wanted more, whether it was professionalism, or at least an understanding of the level of commitment we were putting in as players. 

“I always felt they were good conversations, that there were aspirations to develop, and I always felt there was a lot of support behind the growth of the women’s game.

“There were little changes,” she concedes, “they were small, but it felt like we were creeping the right way, certainly more than the year before, so it felt like we were getting better. But the tough part in all of that, was that it was never enough.

“I look at the squad now, and some of the girls in that changing room were in the squad with me before the 2014 World Cup and would have had to have that conversation for a number of years now, which makes it really difficult because you want it to get better. 

“You want it to get better not necessarily for you, but for the next generation, they’re really mindful of that, it’s huge. If you could harness that, bloody hell, that’s an amazing attitude to have.”

“And I think it’s hard to stay engaged with that, it’s hard to respond to that positively when, you know, that, like  carrot doesn’t come at the end.

“You see it in other countries, people are trying professionalism, maybe they are failing, you know, but they have tried it. 

“I think there is a belief that if we try something, it would probably go wrong,” she admits. “But I think you’ve got to try, there’s definitely got to be an element of trial and error in it for me, but I think if you don’t ever do it, you don’t know.”

Rachel’s recent experience has also made her want to influence change not just for players but for coaches too. “What I want to do now is ensure that other female coaches know that what they’re doing isn’t wrong, it isn’t not good enough, it might just be different,” she explains. “If they’re getting the engagement they need out of the players, if they’re getting development and enjoyment from the players, then they’re probably doing something really right. 

“So, anything that I can do, developing that side of things, for coaches, as well as players, will be massive for me going forward. 

“It’s also about how to take criticism as well, to take those knock backs and review yourself and refine yourself and come back and give a better delivery or a better plan of that session, I think would be huge for loads of coaches out there. 

“Especially, you know, the female ones trying to develop their career within either the male or the female game.

“I probably had an easier road to men’s rugby, I went to Colwyn Bay [where she still coaches} where I know everyone. It helped that the club fully supported me, regardless of my gender, so that was never an issue, it had a massive effect on me because it meant I could coach how I wanted.”

She still wants to coach at the highest level too. “I do have aspirations to be a head coach, I know that is a long one, I don’t want to pigeon hole myself as a forwards coach or defence coach, or lineout, or skills, breakdown, I want to try all sorts so I can be as rounded as a coach as possible.

“I think only France have a female head coach, which is nuts. That’s the pinnacle of our game in Europe, the Six Nations and that’s what’s being seen. 

“I think if coaches and women can keep building that network, keep sharing their stories and keep striving for something better, or even demand something better, that will give other people the confidence.

“I know how fortunate I am to have had the leg up that I’ve had, but I face those challenges on a daily basis, despite who I am, despite what I’ve done.

“So, for other female coaches, I can imagine there are times when it feels like, you know, Everest, it must be ridiculous challenge. So, there’s loads more to be done from everyone within the game – right up to gender equality within board level.

“Giselle [Mather, DoR at Wasps] is somebody who has openly tried to be different, she’s not shied away from the fact that she has her own coaching style, or her coaching philosophy, and, like, that’s really brave. She’s so confident within herself.

“She came to speak to us and you hear some of the stories that she overcame. Had she been male, we can probably say she would have 100 per cent have been up for at least an interview or even lined up internally for the jobs  [at London Irish]. It is really difficult to try and understand why that hasn’t happened because of her gender. 

“It’s 2021,” she continues, “and it’s super difficult when you’ve had these conversations for how many years previous, because there’s awareness of it, everybody knows what happened, but it’s still not changing. 

“It does make you wonder why these coaches haven’t gone to a higher level? Susie [Appleby, Exeter Chiefs’ DoR] did some stuff with England previously, but what is it that stopped others from doing it? And why? Because that’s the next step, and somebody needs to go through and do it and live it. 

“And, it’s not going to be all sunshine and roses, everyone knows that. As a head coach, you could be gone in a few months if you’re not performing, that is sport and the nature of the beast. It’s not because of their gender. 

“When I took on Colwyn Bay, I was the first female coach in the national  divisions in a hundred years, and that blows my mind. How has it not happened before me? 

“I always see some amazing female coaches, and they’re always at club level and tend to be involved in the juniors or the minis. And then they hit this invisible barrier when they hit youth level and someone else gets the job. 

“Two years later, a club is raving about how good the youth team is, and that’s because they had this amazing female coach in the minis, but you never let her progress past under-12s. 

“There’s so many invisible barriers, it’s not a physical thing, but it’s there, and it’s there for most female coaches.

“There’s some pretty fierce coaches, Giselle and that crop of coaches, and I hope to see one of those coaches, if they want to, coach in the male game, it would be brilliant. Until we see stuff like that it’s going to be very difficult to become the norm.”

Do you still want to coach Wales? “Yeah, definitely, it’s always going to be the dream job,” she says. “I think, but there are stages we need to get to in terms of equality or even just an investment in the game first. I think I would need to see some significant changes to want to do that. 

“I think I have learned from that experience, and I shouldn’t have to say it, but the resilience that comes from it. I’ve questioned myself 1,000 times, whether I’m in the right thing, am I doing the right thing? Am I good enough to do it? Like, you know, kind of imposter syndrome sort of feeling.”

And she’ll continue to work for the improvement of the game in her country . “Playing and captaining Wales is always going to be a special period and when I reflect on life, some of the best moments I’ve had will be with my country. 

“That inherit love of the game and the want for it to be better will always drive me, whether that’s with or without the WRU.”

And she’s positive about the future too, at least the potential. She’s seen a ‘scary’ amount of potential among young players in Wales with ‘just an insane skillset and freedom to play’, and has set up her own rugby academy Rygbi 7/11 with Sale Sharks and Wales international Jess Kavanagh to try and support both players and coaches. “We know these guys are out there and we know that they need more in terms of pathway support.”

There’s also some world-class Welsh ambassadors out in the field too. “If I was seven or eight years old now, when I saw Jaz Joyce on a TV, I’d be like, ‘how do I do it?’.

“These players are going out and inspiring the next generation, but how do they even get into the game? How do they stay in the game? What happens when they can’t play mixed rugby anymore? Is there a girls’ cluster? And if there is, how do they get on elite pathway?

“Until that is all there, we’ll probably miss quite a lot of generation of
rugby players.”  

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Russ Williams

This extract was taken from issue 15 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.