The rugby league season has been affected on a large scale by the pandemic but it hasn’t stopped the Barrow ladies team from staying in shape and keeping positive about a return to rugby in the near future.
Professional rugby league has continued with the 2020 season reaching it’s conclusion back in November but for every other league, it’s been nearly a year since any games have been played.
One of the side’s coaches Simon Woodend has spoken about the impact which Covid has had on the team and how they have kept going through these tough times.
He said: “It’s had a negative effect on the team as a whole due to not being able to play games but the squad have come together and are keeping a positive outlook for the future and hopefully we will get some game time in this season.”
On how the side has stayed fit, he said: “The squad have done really well with the season being put on hold.
They have got together when allowed in their group and when not allowed, as the current situation, they have set targets and “competitions” between themselves for fitness games and exercises.
They have also done zoom meetings and fitness sessions together to keep things going and are also setting themselves fitness tasks and working on 1 2 1 fitness sessions with one of our other coaches Steven Hartle, who sets weekly challenges which the squad then take on themselves.”
The club was only formed back in 2016, and they compete in the Women’s Championship which is only one division below the Women’s Super League.
Woodend joined the set-up in 2018, and he also spoke about how the team was formed and how he got involved with the club.
Woodend said: “The ladies team was already set up when their original coach unfortunately left the team.
I was asked if I would take over and finish the season for the ladies, which I decided to do and after I had done this I enjoyed it so decided to stay on for another season.
However things needed to be changed which ranged from putting together a new coaching team, changing things for the players and also setting up a new game plan.”
The side consists of players from all over Cumbria, and Woodend spoke about how they recruited all the players.
He said: “It was hard to re-invent the squad and it was quite hard to recruit new players.
A lot of time and effort was done by the new coaching squad, committee and players themselves and we did a great job in getting more and more ladies interested in rugby league.
There is a wide range of players that come from various areas in Cumbria and these include Barrow, Ulverston and surrounding areas, Millom and Workington / Whitehaven areas.”
Reflecting on past seasons, Woodend made it clear as to how far the side has come in such a short period of time.
“Our first season seen us progress from 7th in the previous season to finishing 2nd in the league only to a very strong (semi pro) Warrington team and we also got to the grand final against Warrington, but were unlucky as the final result went against us,” he said.
The league table from the 2019 season where the side narrowly missed out on promotion.
“The team, as a whole, have progressed massively and I think we passed all our expectations if we are honest.
“We also had a number of players selected for County and England which again is a credit to the coaching staff and players themselves on how far we have progressed.”
Rugby season is just around the corner and let’s hope that this season gets the go ahead for the other divisions so that the Ladies team can get back playing again.
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