SMALLER BALLS IN WOMEN’S RUGBY IS 'WORST DECISION EVER'
Some of the biggest names in women’s rugby have rebelled against the proposed introduction of smaller balls for this autumn’s WXV Global Series, with Zoe Harrison calling it “the worst decision ever made”.
Size 4.5 balls, which are about three per cent smaller but the same weight as size fives, will be used for the tournament in September and October after World Rugby carried out a trial for female players on its sevens circuit.
But England’s Harrison, widely regarded as the best fly-half in the game, along with Red Roses legend Maggie Alphonsi, have hit out against the global governing body’s proposal.
“It’s the worst decision that someone has ever made,” Harrison, who won the World Cup last year, told the BBC, before expanding to Telegraph Sport: “I think it’s a waste of time. Why? Our hookers can throw, we can pass, and we can all kick the ball.
“Why has that changed? The ball might not fly as far because it won’t be as heavy. I do not understand why they have introduced that. Maybe our hands are a bit smaller, I understand that, but we have dealt with it. No one has complained.”
The 28-year-old, who successfully kicked 15 from 15 kicks with a size-five ball in this year’s Women’s Six Nations, added: “I’ve not kicked any less than a size five since I was the age of 14.”
Given men’s hands are about 10 to 15 per cent bigger than women’s, World Rugby has introduced the smaller ball with the hope of reducing handling errors and increasing the accuracy of passing and line-out throwing. World Rugby believes that the smaller ball has a bigger “sweet spot” for kicking and passing which should, theoretically, make those disciplines easier.
Alphonsi, a World Cup winner in 2014, wrote on X: “Well said, Zoe. I do not support the decision either. It’s an unnecessary change.”
World Rugby told the BBC it had received positive responses from players who have tried the size 4.5 ball.
“Along with the sevens players, we’ll carefully take stock of player feedback, injury surveillance and shape of the game data from the WXV Global Series,” said Mark Harrington, the global governing body’s chief player welfare and rugby services officer.
“From there, together with the wider women’s game, we’ll assess the findings and look at where we go next.”
World Rugby declined to make further comment when approached by Telegraph Sport.
Women do not need smaller rugby balls – you wouldn’t get ‘help’ in the men’s game
As someone who usually does her talking on the pitch, Zoe Harrison has never been overly forthcoming when it comes to media duties. But upon hearing the news that a smaller 4.5 size ball will be used in the international women’s game later this year, the Red Roses fly-half did not hold back. “It’s the worst decision that someone has ever made,” Harrison, in a scathing attack on World Rugby, told BBC Sport.
There is a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with Harrison’s wonderfully blunt – and well placed – opinion. She is, of course, spot on. Trialling a smaller ball in the WXV Global Series this October is both unnecessary and regressive. The 4.5 ball may be only three per cent smaller than the standard size-five one, but in high-performance sport such fine margins risk undermining the progress that women’s rugby has made in recent times. The whole debate smacks of the tedious (and thankfully now defunct) smaller goals argument in women’s football, which has been laid to rest with the increase in specialist goalkeeping coaching in the professional game.
World Rugby claims a smaller ball will reduce the number of handling errors in women’s rugby, but even this argument seems redundant when you consider the ever-increasing standard of the female game. A few months ago I wrote a piece about how women’s props in Premiership Women’s Rugby are outperforming their male counterparts in the Prem. Last season, the women made double the number of offloads as their male counterparts and nearly 1½ times the number of turnovers. But apparently, their dainty little hands are not adept enough at handling a size-five ball.
Rugby’s global governing body insists it has received positive feedback from players on the 4.5 ball, which is said to maintain the aerodynamic and technological advantages of the regulation size five. Yet none of these glowing endorsements were made publicly available in the press release issued last month, when news about the WXV trial was quietly disseminated. Harrison, rather gallingly, was not even aware that it was happening until she was asked about it by journalists this week.
As a fly-half, Harrison’s main concern understandably centres around how the ball modification will affect kicking – a subject which has long been maligned in the women’s game. The basic laws of physics dictate that the flight of the ball would be impaired by its smaller mass, however bespoke it might be. Harrison has kicked 15 from 15 conversions in this year’s Women’s Six Nations while she is also one of three players to have made 25-metre passes. That is only six metres behind the longest pass thrown in this year’s men’s edition (Ireland’s Jamie Osborne, against Scotland). It is hardly a colossal difference, but however hard they work on their accuracy and upper-body strength, women’s players will probably not close that gap with a ball that has less surface area.
Rolling out this supposedly evidence-based decision in a major senior competition at WXV feels like jumping the gun when you consider the scope of the smaller-ball trial. This includes sevens (which thrives off ball-in-play time and rarely involves tactical kicking), Six Nations under-18 level (a non-professional competition where teenage girls are still honing their skills), a regional competition in Asia (hardly a renowned hotbed for professional women’s XVs players) and the Celtic Challenge (a league still in its infancy).
As for this year’s Women’s Six Nations, data from Stats Perform show handling errors per game are at their lowest in the competition’s history, while the conversion rate is at its highest. Intriguingly, there have already been more 50:22 kicks in the 2026 edition than any other year since the law was introduced, with two rounds remaining. Women are doing just fine with the standard size-five ball, thank you very much.
But rugby’s blazer brigade clearly thinks otherwise. If they are not careful, their insistence on infantilising the women’s game risks alienating more players like Harrison.
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