IN the shadows of the old wooden posts on a warm late summer’s evening at Barrow Island’s Rating Lane ground, John Johnson is running his small but dedicated group of players through some training drills.

Starting with basic passing exercises, the weekly hour-and-a-half Tuesday night session moves on to dummy running and some of the finer points of rugby league game play, eventually building up to an inter-squad game to conclude practise with.

It is all part of the women’s rugby league revival Johnson and the players of Barrow Ladies are trying to lead in the town, although only being able to play two games since the club were formed in February has hampered their efforts somewhat.

Johnson, who was inspired to take on the role as the team’s head coach out of a desire to give his rugby-mad daughter and other girls from the area somewhere to play the sport, remains undeterred though and envisions a return to the glory days of two decades ago.

“What we’re trying to create is what went on in the late 1990s, when Barrow Ladies were absolutely thriving and they were world-beaters – you had God-knows-how-many Great Britain internationals,” said Johnson.

“What we’re trying to create is a sustainable Barrow side, but it’s going from women right down to where girls have to officially stop playing, which has now been extended from 10-years-old to 12.

“I’ve coached up here for a number of years and we’ve lost a lot of good players due to that ruling. We can understand it, but if you go to the North West Counties, where they’re playing from the age of eight right up to open age, that’s what we’re trying to create.

“We’re not talking about doing this over one year’s period, this will be going on for 10 years until we’re up and running.”

A 24-20 victory over Langworthy Reds win in their first game was followed by a 52-4 defeat away to the well-established Leigh Miners Rangers side in the North West Counties Cup recently. But despite having to borrow some rugby union players from Kendal and Preston who had never played the 13-man code, they drew praise from the hosts who were surprised to learn it was only their second outing.

Barrow have now entered the BARLA winter merit league, which is due to start next month, and the aim is to progress to the first division for next year, along with getting the under-14s and under-16s teams off the ground.

And while some of the squad have a strong rugby league background – team captain Emily Stirzaker, for example, has represented the England college side – most of the players are new to the sport. Amanda Studley is one of those who decided to give rugby league a go after seeing an advert for the team, having previously played netball, and is eager for others to sample what the sport is all about.

“I think when women see rugby, they think it’s all rough-and-tumble, and you have to be some hard person to play it,” said Studley, who also serves as the club’s secretary.

“It’s not about that; it’s about skill and fitness, and knowing the game.

“We’ve put every player through the referee awareness course. I’ve done the child welfare officer course, we’ve got level two coaching course for the ladies so we can then teach the girls.

“You’ve also got 75 per cent of us who’ve never played rugby in our lives. We had three or four who have played, but we start from the basics with new people.

“We don’t want to put anyone off or for them to think they won’t be able to understand it or do it.”

Barrow’s players have been out promoting the club at various events, including the recent tag rugby festival at Furness Rugby Union, along with securing kit sponsorship from Furness Tiles and Flooring, The Kill One bar, Craig McCowen Ltd, Street Food and Larkin Engineering.

There are long-term plans for the players to be going into schools to put on taster sessions for potential recruits, along with running both elite-level and more social teams at senior level.

And having seen how much work his players have put into trying to drive the club forward, head coach Johnson is in no doubt women’s rugby league can once again thrive in the town.

“I think the women will achieve it,” said Johnson.

“When we started, I sent out 250 begging letters for sponsors and got one reply, but they got a kit just like that.

“They are determined, which is good. We’ve got our core of players who want to make it happen and now we just need to fill the shirts, and get them to get the rugby bug like these.

“Women’s football and girls’ football is thriving in this area, and we want to create that for girls for rugby league. We don’t want girls to miss out on playing sport.”

l Anyone interested in joining the team should look up Barrow Ladies RLFC on Facebook, or contact Amanda Studley via email at amandarugby60 @yahoo.com or on 07727 210520.