Inside Scottish Rugby's plans for women's rugby: contract talks, Gemma Fay future, why only one year

Williamson, the governing body’s chief executive, described it as “evolution” and the start of a new four-year cycle building towards the 2029 Women’s Rugby World Cup in Australia.

Scotland have just returned home from this year’s tournament where they played in their first quarter-final in 23 years, losing to hosts England.

Williamson praised the team’s performance but the competition ended on a sour note for many in the squad who missed out on new contracts. Jade Konkel was among those to be overlooked and announced her retirement after the England defeat with a swipe at the governing body.

Konkel, now 29, was Scotland’s first full-time professional women's rugby player back in 2016 and was less than enamoured with the way the news that there would be no new deal was delivered to her. “It was a six-minute conversation, after 13 years of service,” she said.

Of the 32 players in Scotland’s World Cup squad, 22 have been awarded new contracts. Scottish Rugby said the new women’s programme is expected to cost around £5m for the financial year, an increase of approximately 20 per cent on the spend last year.

So what’s the deal?

Thirty-five players are to receive “financial support contracts” and Scottish Rugby has described it as a “mixed model” in that 17 of them are based in England and France and 18 are in Scotland. The names of the players have yet to be announced.

The home-based group is split between 11 full-time and seven development players and they will be supported through a new centralised programme at Oriam sports centre on the outskirts of Edinburgh. They will have access to Scottish Rugby’s recently appointed team of high performance experts in sports science, athletic performance, analysis, physiotherapy and nutrition.

“Sports psychology and mental skills are all areas that are going to be addressed,” said David Nucifora, Scottish Rugby’s consultant performance director who drove the new appointments. “So it will be a fully supported professional programme for these players. Our aim will be to accelerate their development as quickly as we possibly can, to let them reach their potential as fast as possible.”

An additional 15 “emerging” players will also have access to the high-performance programme but on an amateur basis. It means there will be 50 players in the high-performance set-up.

There were 32 contracted players last season, of which 29 were full-time and three were development. So while there are more contracted players this season there is one fewer full-time player.

Scotland the paid

The contracts are for one-year only. Those who play for Scotland will be able to earn more as part of a separate arrangement. “There is a Women's National Team Agreement to play for Scotland,” explained Williamson. “And I think it's really important that there is a distinction between the financial support contracts that Scotland are providing to players to play professional rugby and selection and playing for the national team.”

They are paid for the days that they are required to be with the Scotland squad and also bonuses for wins and other achievements.

Why only one year?

Nucifora said that one-year contracts “isn’t ideal but we are in a state of transition”.

Williamson added: “But what I can say is that the investment in both player salaries and also the coaching and support environments is an increase on anything we've done in the past.”

Celtic Challenge today, British & Irish league tomorrow?

The main playing outlet for the Scottish-based contracted players will be with Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors in the Celtic Challenge, a semi-pro tournament involving clubs from Scotland, Ireland and Wales which was launched in 2023. Both Williamson and Nucifora said it was a competition “on an upward trajectory”.

Williamson spoke optimistically of it joining forces with the English Premiership to become a British and Irish league over time although a combined cup competition might be more realistic.

New head coach

Bryan Easson stepped down as Scotland head coach after the World Cup and Nucifora wants his successor in place “over the next couple of months”.

“What we expect is for someone to keep evolving the team, to keep improving the performances, all the things that you would naturally expect from a head coach,” he said.

Two new assistant coaches will also be appointed.

Two key appointments and what of Gemma Fay?

Aside from the contracts, the other big takeaway from Thursday’s announcement was the creation of two new heavyweight roles: a head of women's high performance pathway and a managing director of women’s rugby.

The MD will sit in the Scottish Rugby leadership team and “will be the one driving strategy, commercialisation and our impact on the international game”, according to Williamson.

He added: “We had a number of good candidates, both internal and external, so we'll be making announcements in the next week or so.”

Gemma Fay is currently head of women's and girls' strategy for Scottish Rugby but Williamson would not be drawn on how the new appointments would affect her role.

“There will be a reorganisation and the MD role and the new pathways role will be the lead roles within the women's game,” he said. “You'll get more detail on that when we make the announcements as we fill them.

World Cup target hit

If the contract saga overshadowed the World Cup performance to an extent, Williamson was still keen to big up the squad for qualifying from the pool stage to reach the quarter-finals, something their male counterparts had conspicuously failed to do in 2019 and 2023.

“When we started four or more years ago with the women's strategy, one of the KPIs was that we would have a team that reached the top eight at the Rugby World Cup in 2025. I know I speak for Scottish Rugby and probably all of the rugby-watching Scottish public, to say how proud we should all be of the fact that the squad took us to that outstanding achievement.”