FANS will have no excuses for missing any of the new Super W rugby competition with all games to be shown on Fox Sports.
The inaugural women’s competition will run for five weeks from March 10 has teams from each Australian Super Rugby club plus the Western Force who will battle it out to be the first ever domestic women’s XVs champions.
The draw is expected to be finalised this week with a number of games will be held as double-headers with men’s fixtures and some matches to be shown live on Fox.
After the enormous success of Australia’s women’s sevens team, that centralised nearly six years ago in pursuit of Olympic gold, the XVs game now comes into focus.
Fox Sports head of television Steve Crawley said showing the Super W was an obvious choice given the quality and success of female rugby.
“Women’s rugby in Australia is not just first class, but world class,” Crawley said.
“We all cheered our green and gold seven-a-side team home for gold at the Rio Olympics and now we have a national 15-a-side Super W competition ready to kick off on Fox Sports.
“We were already adding Mollie Gray to our commentary team, so here’s another thing for her to do.
“Mollie won’t be playing the Super W because she has a busted knee but her vocal chords are good as gold.”
Gray joins Fox’s Super Rugby: Kick & Chase as a regular panellist this season.
The experienced Wallaroo will appear alongside Nick McArdle, George Gregan, Drew Mitchell and Brendan Cannon most weeks to analyse the Super Rugby and Super W.
Her joining Fox Sports isn’t something out of the blue, however, with Gray having dabbled in the media while playing.
She is pleased the opportunity came at a time when she could fully commit.
“To find myself on the sidelines now for quite some time and potentially for good it’s a really cool transition,” she said.
“It’s difficult though, it’s really difficult to watch the girls playing and getting away to Global Tens and Super W and potential Test matches later in the year. “That’s hard to miss out on, but where I’m at and where my body is at, it was an easy decision to make.”
Super Rugby: Kick & Chase returns at 7.30pm Wednesday on FOX SPORTS 501
