Jo Yapp, the women’s British & Irish Lions head coach, revealed that she has spoken to Andy Farrell to pick “the brains of those who have gone before” as she begins her preparations for the inaugural tour.
Yapp, who was in charge of Australia at the World Cup last year, was appointed last month as the head coach for the 2027 women’s Lions tour of New Zealand. Farrell was the head coach of the men’s winning tour of Australia in 2025 and is the Ireland head coach.
The 46-year-old said: “I think it is really important to draw on the experiences before. I have already spoken to Andy Farrell, who was really helpful, so my plan is to make sure we pick the brains of those who have gone before because it would be naive not to use that experience.
“He was super open, which was really lovely. One of the things he talked about in terms of when you are pulling together your staff is that you get the right people there. The people you trust, you can work with. I think that is massively important for me when I am considering people to bring together.”
Yapp has not yet selected the rest of her coaching staff and said it will be about “getting the best people in the room” to be as “strong as we can and to create the best environment for the players”. It has not been confirmed when the rest of the coaches will be announced.
A worry for fans is that the Lions team will be made up mainly of England players, with the Red Roses an all-conquering side in the women’s game. The team are world champions and are on a winning run of 38 consecutive games.
Yapp said: “Ultimately we want to pick the best players. As it stands, and having watched a lot of Six Nations, PWR, Celtic Challenge games there are a lot of very good players across the other unions that will definitely be putting their hands up. Although it is not a long time [until the tour], there are a lot of games to be played. So I am looking forward to seeing how the games go and how they put their hands up.”
There have been questions around how many fans will make the journey to New Zealand and if somewhere such as France may have drawn bigger crowds. But the Lions chief executive, Ben Calveley, said they “stand by” their decision and did not rule out going to France in future tours.
“We are really focused now on 2027 but there will be a second women’s Lions tour in 2031 and we are about to start a piece of work on what the future looks like,” he said. “We are not in any way obligated to go to the same countries that the men have visited in the past.
“We are not going to New Zealand because the Lions have toured there historically, we are going because we believe it to be the right location for the inaugural tour. In the future you could see us go to completely new and different territories, which is really exciting.”
Elsewhere, the Rugby Football Union council member who made a discriminatory comment about the World Cup winner and pundit Maggie Alphonsi has resigned.
Matt Smith, who represented Warwickshire, had his privileges suspended after a disciplinary hearing in May for posting on Facebook: “Can someone please explain to me WTF does Maggie Alphonsi know about men’s rugby?”
A Warwickshire RFU statement read: “We would like to announce that Matt Smith has resigned from his position as chair of Warwickshire RFU, in light of a recent disciplinary process. We want to be clear that we take issues of sexism and misogyny seriously.”
