Great Britain women's national rugby union team
rugby team
The Great Britain women's national rugby union team was the national rugby union team of Great Britain, from 1986 to 1990.
History
The team was organised by the Women's Rugby Football Union (WRFU), which governed women's rugby in the United Kingdom from 1983 to 1994. It emerged during a formative period for the women's game, when the sport remained largely amateur and was primarily centred on universities and a small number of clubs.
The Great Britain side was established as a representative team drawing players from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, reflecting the absence of fully developed national teams at that time.
Great Britain played its first international match against France on 19 April 1986 at the Richmond Athletic Ground in London, the first women's international rugby union match to be staged in Britain. France won 14–8, scoring three tries to Great Britain's two, both scored by Karen Almond. The match attracted a crowd of around 800 spectators and was regarded as an important milestone in establishing the viability and visibility of the women's international game.
The team continued to compete internationally between 1986 and 1990, before being gradually replaced by separate national sides representing England, Scotland and Wales. England and Wales played their first internationals in 1987, with Scotland and Ireland following in 1993.
Results summary
(Full internationals only)
Results
Full internationals
Players
Notes
This list is not necessarily complete and is based on currently identified sources.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Great Britain women's national rugby union team” is rugby team. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Great, Britain and women's, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “rugby team” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5598889. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1986, 1990, 1983 and 1994.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Great Britain women's national rugby union team”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Great Britain women's national rugby union team primary sources, Great Britain women's national rugby union team archive and Great research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Great Britain women's national rugby union team”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Great Britain women's national rugby union team” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.