The newly-formed Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh women’s teams will play their first competitive match against each other at the end of the month - just hours before the men’s sides play the second leg of their 1872 Cup double-header.
The game at Edinburgh’s Hive Stadium will kick off at noon, while the men’s match gets under way at 3pm next door at the national stadium. The fixture will be a first-round match in the newly-expanded Celtic Challenge tournament, which will also include two teams from Ireland - the Wolfhounds and the Clovers - and two from Wales - Brython Thunder and Gwalia Lightning. Each team will play five games in a mini-league before three play-off rounds decide who will be this season’s champions.
The Celtic Challenge began last season with just one team from each of the three countries. Scotland’s representatives were called the Thistles, and essentially functioned as a home-based shadow side to the national team.
The Warriors’ home games will be at Scotstoun. Details of the coaching teams and playing squads of both new Scots sides will be announced shortly.
Announcing the new teams yesterday, Gemma Fay, the head of Scottish Rugby’s Women’s & Girls’ Strategy, said she was confident that the existing Edinburgh and Glasgow officials would welcome the women’s teams into their clubs. “The decision to align our Celtic Challenge teams to Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors presents a fantastic opportunity to provide our two teams with a strong individual identity and sense of belonging, whilst also tapping into each club’s current fan base,” she said. “I know that [Warriors managing director] Al Kellock, [Edinburgh MD] Doug Struth and their colleagues will do a great job in making our teams and their management feel part of their clubs.”
Kellock added: “We’re extremely excited to be able to expand our club with the launch of our first-ever women’s team. We look forward to sharing more details about our team in the next few weeks.”
Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors fixtures:
Round one: Edinburgh v Glasgow (Hive, Sat 30 Dec, noon).
Round two: Edinburgh v Wolfhounds (Hive, Sat 6 Jan, 2pm), Gwalia Lightning v Glasgow (Sun 7 Jan, 1.30pm, Cardiff Arms Park)
Round three: Glasgow v Wolfhounds (Scotstoun, Sat 13 Jan, 2pm), Brython Thunder v Edinburgh (Parc Y Scarlets, Sun 14 Jan, 1.30pm).
Round four: Glasgow v Clovers (Scotstoun, Sat 27 Jan, 2pm), Gwalia Lightning v Edinburgh (Cardiff Arms Park, Sun 28 Jan, 1.30pm).
Round five: Edinburgh v Clovers (Hive, Sat 3 Feb, 12.30pm), Brython Thunder v Glasgow (Parc Eirias, Sat 3 Feb, 2.30pm).
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here