Worcester Warriors Women’s sixth-place finish in the Premier 15s, in a season that saw the club’s future threatened, is testament to the squad’s resilience, says director of rugby Jo Yapp.
Warriors fought back from 21-7 at half-time to draw 33-33 in their final game of the campaign against Harlequins.
Earlier in the season, the women’s side were suspended from playing after the club went into administration.
“I’d have taken sixth in October when we weren’t in the league,” Yapp said.
“We’d all lost our contracts and to finish the season sixth is just testament to the players and staff we’ve got – they’re such a resilient bunch and I think that showed in the Harlequins game,” Yapp told BBC Hereford and Worcester.
The result saw Warriors finish eight points clear of Sale – the other club who, like Worcester, were originally left out of the initial group of eight clubs given a place in the top flight for next season in December.
Two months earlier, the side had been suspended from playing following the financial collapse at Sixways that saw the players’ contracts cancelled and the club placed into administration.
However, after funding was secured for the women’s side to continue and become independent from the men, they were given permission from the Rugby Football Union to take their place this term.
With that funding now in place for the long term with local sports management business Cube International, Warriors were awarded their top-flight spot for 2023-24 in March.
Yapp knows, although the future of the men’s team is still unclear despite its sale to the Atlas Group, the women are still flying the flag for Warriors at Sixways.
“I appreciate the men aren’t here at the moment but we are and so we want people to come and support us because everyone appreciates it,” she said.
“We’ve kept going through all of this. There’s still a Warriors team here and that’s what we’ve been saying. You can still come and watch top-class rugby.
“This is what we want to build on next season. We want every game to be an event and get the crowd behind us – the crowd makes a massive difference.”
Fundraising campaign ‘going well’
There are still some hurdles for the club to overcome ahead of the new campaign with £50,000 needed to keep the side going over the summer before the new funding kicks in.
Yapp says the club’s fundraising campaign is “going well” after a “tough season mentally and emotionally” adding: “We had a lot of people say they want to support us financially – the community do want to get behind us and this is an opportunity for them to do it.”
