Q&A with Susie Appleby
Former England No.9 Susie Appleby, now head coach of the fledgling Exeter Chiefs women’s side after leaving Gloucester-Hartpury earlier this year, tells NEALE HARVEY how the development strategy at Sandy Park is beginning to pay dividends.
Two months into Exeter’s inaugural Allianz Premier 15s campaign, how satisfied are you?
Pretty pleased. It was quite a challenge putting a squad together and when the first game kicked off in October players were still arriving. But the girls have been brilliant and all the squad are just desperate to learn. We have the luxury of having just over 20 players full-time over a three-day working week which means you can make massive progress with them and then layer on the part-timers. We’ve had a few good wins and have run established sides like Wasps and Loughborough close. A little bit of inaccuracy has let us down but the pleasing thing is we’re improving with every performance.
How has your very cosmopolitan squad gelled?
We’re trying to blend local, young players with experienced internationals like Patricia Garcia (Spain) and Kate Zackary (USA) and the reason we brought those overseas players in was their leadership. They’ve provided exactly what we expected and because they’ve been professional players on the Sevens circuit and have played in big tournaments, being professional is all they know and they’re brilliant people as well. Take Gabby Cantorna, our USA centre, you can only learn so much from a snapshot of video footage in which she looked good, but she’s been even better in the flesh than we anticipated. She has a huge desire to learn and grow and all the team are feeding off that. We’ve brought these players and others in but we also want to develop girls like Flo Robinson, an England U20s player who’s at university here, and Michaella Roberts, who’s been in the U20s and is looking to kick-on. The future is really bright for these girls and we’re really hoping for some senior England recognition sooner rather than later. Loads of our players have massive potential and Exeter’s a really good fit for them with the university and professional programme we’re able to offer. It gives them that dual career pathway of getting to the top in rugby and also having educational qualifications as well, which is very important. It’s not just about developing rugby players, it’s about the whole person, and having a good mix of backgrounds with older and younger players helps.
Training at Sandy Park is currently staggered with the women training after the men, often in the evenings, so presumably that limits interaction?
We do train at different times but it was always going to be that way. It’s their club first and foremost and we’re the add-ons, but in a really good way because they don’t treat us as add-ons. They treat us as equals, which is so refreshing compared to previous experiences I’ve had in the women’s game. Rob Baxter is fabulous to work with and Tony Rowe doesn’t just pay lip service to us, he sees us as rugby players and all he knows is to treat us in the best way he possibly can. Yes, we have some part-time players so we have to train in the evenings, but the academy boys are in training in the early mornings and that’s just part of being an athlete.
Do you see much of the Exeter Chiefs men’s coaches?
They came en-masse to our game against Wasps the other week and have been brilliant. Rob Hunter’s been doing loads of work with Amy Garnett on the forwards, which has been invaluable with his experience, while Rob Baxter is always around overseeing things and is available for advice. Ricky Pellow’s been doing stuff with our scrum-halves, Haydn Thomas has been helping with our attack, Julian Salvi’s been advising on defence and Gareth Steenson works with the kickers. We’ve got the whole package, including brilliant S&C and physios supported by the men’s set-up. It’s all joined-up and the future is so exciting because there’s no ceiling to our opportunity.
How aware are you that Tony Rowe’s a hard-nosed businessman who will demand success?
He certainly is but that’s why it’s so good because I’m conscious that he is a businessman. The business has lost money during Covid so we’re keen to get people watching us, not just for
the sake of the girls but to help start repairing the finances. We want to pay our way and prove our worth, as well as performing on the field. Performance is massive but what we do off the field is equally important and to have sold over 1,000 tickets prior to this weekend’s match against Sale was amazing. It’s more than I ever saw for a regular Gloucester-Hartpury game and, hopefully, more will come in future because we want to treat our sponsors as well as we can, too. They’ve been fantastic to us and where we can go with this is exciting because local businesses want to get involved. The Chiefs brand is so huge that everyone wants to be part of it, which is brilliant.
How inspirational is it for your girls to see what the men’s side have achieved?
They hear what the men’s coaches say to them and see what the men’s team are doing and we use a lot of their footage of how they play. We’re using bits of how they play ourselves and whilst it doesn’t fit wholesale because we’re females and they’re males, some of it fits really well and they’ve been really successful with it. We haven’t had the full interaction with their players yet because of Covid restrictions but we know that will come and it will take us to another level. Our girls have only experienced a tiny bit of what Sandy Park has to offer but they can feel how special it is to be here. They’ve seen the success of the men’s team and want to emulate it. Patricia Garcia has also now taken on our centre of excellence and she wants to accelerate the learning of our 16 to 18-year-old academy girls who will take the field for the first time in January. There’s loads of good stuff going on and seeing what the men have done is helping to build our future.
How are you coping with the adapted laws?
They’re alright, but only alright. For example, we recruited lots of top-class props but we’re currently only getting five scrums a game between two teams when that’s an area we could potentially be dominant in, particularly from close range. Restarts from free-kicks are really quite odd and while we’ve just got to get used to it at the moment, it’s not very real. The breakdown is the same and is still brutally contested but we’re ending up with a load more lineouts. Last weekend we had 19 lineouts against Loughborough and that’s been a disappointing area for us so far, but once we get that bit nailed we’ll start putting in more complete performances. The other thing we’ve noted is that ball-in-play time is the same even though we’re playing 35-minute halves, simply because there are far fewer scrums. You gain in some ways but lose in others, but we’re just grateful to be on the field.
You finished as a player in 2007, how has the game changed since your day?
I was in at the first knockings of professionalism and was able to give up my job as a police officer and get paid to play rugby, but the game looks way different now. The ethos and desire of the players is the same, like wanting to get to World Cups and play for England etc, but we never used to play in front of crowds and there wasn’t any commercialisation. There weren’t any televised games – no England games, nothing – so everything has been massively ramped-up. If you look at how women’s football has grown commercially and the sponsorship that’s been coming on board there, you’re now really starting to see an amazing product that is selling itself. Rugby’s not reached football’s level commercially yet but the players are much more athletic than my generation and that helps.
How satisfied are you with how women’s rugby is televised?
There isn’t enough coverage yet. The fact that a lot of teams are live streaming is positive but the RFU have put in such stringent minimum operating standards that it costs every club loads of money to do it, so that’s been an inhibiting factor, certainly for ourselves. Allianz have come in as league sponsors, which is amazing, but alongside them there was meant to be a TV deal that we haven’t heard any more about it. That’s a shame because after we played Wasps, Rob Baxter said he would have paid subscription money to watch it because it was such a good game. People have talked about the England men’s Autumn Nations Cup games being dull, but the women’s games against France were on BBC 2 and they were really, really good. There’s a lot to be said for putting the women’s game on TV and once we make that next level of progress and start attracting bigger crowds, I hope that will happen. The Premier 15s is growing and it’s a brilliant product that will evolve further over the next couple of years.
Back to your playing days, how proud were you to be part of an England side that helped put women’s rugby on the map?
I loved my playing days and would never change a thing. I’m 100% proud of it. From sewing the number on my shirt when I first played for England Students to winning my first cap in 1994, and then winning my 65th and last cap at Twickenham, each one of those games was special, but what we created off the field was the legacy to go with it. Gill Burns and Nicky Ponsford have given a huge amount to rugby while Giselle Mather, Jo Yapp and myself are coaching and Nollie Waterman’s a TV pundit. Sue Day was on the Sevens circuit and is now at the RFU, while Maggie Alphonsi’s a TV pundit and on the RFU Council. Cath Spencer’s written a book and Kat Merchant’s commentating so you’re seeing women being valued now for what they are, not just as players but rugby experts. To get to see the game grow as it has makes me really proud and the opportunity I have in coaching now is huge. It’s important we keep it going and I love what’s happening with those girls I played with. They’re all on social media promoting the women’s game and I truly believe that England are leading the way because I don’t see as much going on in other countries.
Have you every experienced sexism within rugby from men?
Not really. All I get now is positivity, especially down here in Exeter where it’s just unbelievable. I can be walking along Exmouth beach or on Woodbury Common with the dogs and people will come up to me and start talking about our games. On Twitter you’ll still get the odd troll who says they wouldn’t watch women’s rugby even if it were free, but they get shut down pretty quickly, mainly by other men, and most of it is through ignorance rather than sexism. If they actually watched a game they probably wouldn’t criticise because the standard is so good.
There’s a lot being said about early onset dementia in rugby right now, what’s your view?
I suffered several concussions when I was playing. I don’t have a great memory now but it doesn’t hamper my life and I certainly wouldn’t apportion that to playing rugby, which is a game that I loved playing and I still live and breathe it. I have the ultimate empathy for people who are suffering but I don’t know how much you can correlate it with the game because sh*t happens in life whether you’ve played rugby or not. From my perspective, what happens to me in later life happens and I’ll continue to enjoy being part of the game. Protocols around head injuries are huge now; it’s nothing like it was in our day and everything is so stringent and everyone’s so careful. We’ve got ‘recognise and remove’ and it’s strictly adhered too, so I don’t know what more we can do.
There’s a women’s Rugby World Cup next year. Is there enough depth, given that only England, New Zealand and France look capable of winning it?
I don’t think you can say that. England and France are pooled together so there are no certainties there, and Australia are in camp now and will fancy themselves to surprise New Zealand,
while Canada and USA are pooled together and I expect them to be strong. The so-called lower nations are not considered as competitive but Japan are very capable of causing teams problems and we’ve got Sachiko Kato, the Japanese prop, in our squad and she’s an unbelievable player. Japan have others, too, and are very well coached, so I think it’s going to be a brilliant World Cup in New Zealand.
You turn 50 tomorrow, so what are your longer-term ambitions in rugby?
I just want to keep learning and developing as a coach. I did nine years with England Sevens and five years at Gloucester-Hartpury, including three in the Premier 15s, and learned loads from guys like Simon Middleton, Simon Amor, Johan Ackermann and John Barnes. I loved that, grew as a head coach/DoR and I have no intention of stopping now because I’m in a completely new environment at Exeter and still have so much to learn. We’re a bit like Exeter Chiefs ten years ago when Rob Baxter and Ali Hepher built a team. I chat to Rob a lot and he gets it because he’s done it and he’s fully behind us growing. I had the privilege of coaching England Sevens and that was amazing, but I just want to take Chiefs to where I know they can get to now, so I’m not thinking of anything else.
Finally, when are we going to see the first woman coaching a Premiership men’s first team?
The million-dollar question! First and foremost, coaching men is different to coaching women. Would I want to do it? Probably, yes, but in what capacity would that be? All I know from the set-up at Sandy Park is that a lot of Tony Rowe’s directors are women and that hasn’t happened because he particularly wanted women, it’s happened because they were the best people for the job. From an Exeter Chiefs point of view, if there was a woman who applied to work with Rob Baxter, he would treat her as just another coach and it wouldn’t be, ‘Look, it’s Susie Appleby applying for a man’s job’. I’m currently leading the women’s programme at Exeter because it’s my passion, but could I do the job in a male environment? I don’t know, but maybe one day I’ll get the chance to find out. It’s just got to be the right person, at the right club, in the right position and at the right time, but I do believe it will happen.