Women's Rugby World Cup

With the Women's Rugby World Cup being held from the 8th October to the 12th of November this year in New Zealand, let's have a look at Llanharan's connection to the Tournament.

First of all here's an article outlining what happened in that 1st. World Cup:

"The 1991 Women's Rugby World Cup was the first Women's Rugby World Cup. The tournament was not approved by the International Rugby Board (IRB), yet it still went ahead despite the disapproval of the sports governing body. France confirmed their participation only minutes before the draw was made on 26 February.[citation needed] Representatives of the IRB, WRFU and RFU attended the final, but it was not until 2009 that the IRB officially endorsed the event as a "world cup" when it published, for the first time, a list of previous winners in a press release.

The tournament, was held in and around Cardiff, Wales. Twelve teams competed for the trophy, divided into four pools of three teams each. Each team played three pool matches on 6 April, 8 April, and 10 April, and the semifinals were on 12 April and 14 April, respectively. This meant that the championship teams played five matches over nine days, with only one day rest between matches.

The tournament champions were the United States who defeated England 19–6 in the final at Cardiff Arms Park before almost 3,000 fans.[1] The teams that failed to qualify for the semi-finals took part in a "plate" tournament between the 11 and 13 April."

What this article doesn't tell you is that some of the games were played in Llanharan. We had just opened the Dairyfield, so the ground was looking really good. There were 12 teams in the inaugural tournament and i can remember watching USA, Russia, Sweden and others playing on the ground. I also remember the Russian team being so poor they were selling anything they could to people entering the ground. Most games were midweek and after every game the club would put a disco on in the hall at the old clubhouse. If you have any memories of this event please let us know, so at least i will know i wasn't dreaming all this.