England women’s 15-a-side team are likely to be given longer-term contracts within the next two years, but the RFU insists that the playing pool is not of sufficient quality at present to justify contracting players across both formats of the game. A number of England players will return to their day jobs after the World Cup in Ireland next month, as their short-term contracts come to an end and the RFU’s focus switches to the sevens game. “The playing pool isn’t big enough at the moment for us to contract across both formats, the depth isn’t there,” Nigel Melville, the director of professional rugby, said. “So it’s about allocation of resources and we’re investing heavily in domestic rugby to try to increase that playing pool.”

Source: The Times July 25, 2017 23:01 UTC