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Jane West
Director of Navy Community Rugby (Desig)
In making the latest Executive Committee appointment the Royal Navy Rugby Union has shown an enlightened approach.  Though a relatively new role, the Community Rugby brief is going to be key in how the Union rebounds post Covid19 and both the rugby Director posts will have some very different challenges to face.

Jane will probably be the most experienced director of Community Rugby the Union has had.  25 years immersed in Navy Rugby as a player, captain and team manager of the Senior XV.  She has also played for Combined Services and been a team manager for UK Armed Forces.  Added to this experience, her time with the Navy Mariners saw her work under the guidance of Mike Connolly and she has previously worked closely with established Navy Coaches of the calibre of Steve Melbourne and Steve Wrigglesworth.  It is not difficult to see what experience she will bring to this key role for Navy Rugby.

I would also add, and this is from personal experience, 3 things.  The first she is forthright and is prepared to explain when there is an elephant in the room.  Second she gets things done, one of the few team managers I have worked with in my role as a photographer where my name has always been on the main gate, which makes my life easier and shows she has an attention to the detail.  And finally she understands rugby and more importantly Navy Rugby.

I wish her well in her new role and also good luck to Beasty WIlliams with his new role with NATO.

Geraint

Taking the First Step.........


It was Martin Luther King who said 'Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.' 

Jane started her Navy Rugby journey when the women's game was in its infancy.  Paula Rowe, now a Life Member, was nurturing the concept through its difficult formative stages.  It was certainly not clear in those early days what the future held.

Jane, a sprinter before rugby, was enthused by another speedster, capped Navy player Eddie Over at a weekend training course.  It was a start of a journey that is now entering its 25th year that has seen Jane grow from a rugby novice to an experienced and informed student of the Game.  But it is that first memory that time and time keeps being repeated as something that can be so influential. Study after study shows that if there are enthusiastic teachers then the sport will always be vibrant and healthy in whatever form it takes.  Lets hope she takes that vivid first memory of Navy Rugby into her new role.

From those first tentative steps as a player Jane established herself in both the Service and civilian environments.  Well respected by her peers in the Royal Air Force and Army, Jane also spent a successful period with Plymouth Albion.  However as she was about to embark on her second decade as a player serious injury struck, in the 2006 Army v Navy match, and her playing career was cruelly curtailed.

From the misfortune of injury, Jane developed as an effective administrator.  Her first mentor in Navy Rugby adminstration was Mike Connolly who in 2009 invited Jane to join his backroom staff with the Mariners.  Two Navy Rugby captains talking rugby.  It was a perfect grounding into what was important and what is different when you can no longer think as a player but must begin to think for the player.  Six years later Jane became the team manager for the Women's team and was also invited to be team manager for UK Armed Forces.  Her time with UKAF including the prestigious Remembrance Day fixture against the touring South Africans, a match where the Navy contingent was small with Jane being joined by two players in Charlotte Fredrickson and Olli Critchley.

Sisters are Doing It for Themselves

 
Jane's appointment to the Executive provides a timely reference point to how rugby has expanded and developed in some parts of the evolving Royal Navy.  Whilst we cannot deny the obivous evidence that the modern sporting landscape in the three Services is very different to what it was, even a few years ago.

When you look at the playing records of people like current Asistant Director of Navy Rugby, Paula Benentt-Smith, emerging coaches in Charlie Fredrickson and Loz Salibury, and indeed Jane herself you realise how much rugby experience they have and have been immersed in; often through association with top flight civilian clubs.  It is providing a cadre of rugby talent that Navy Rugby cannot afford not to continue to develop and also learn from. 

It took 22 years for the Royal Navy to develop from the first women at sea, on board HMS Brilliant, in 1990 until Jane's namesake, Sarah West, took command of HMS Portland; the first Women in command of a major warship.  Now we just talk about the Royal Navy with today, even submarines, being a team of all the talents.

I feel Jane's appontment to the Executive in a rugby Director's role will be another similar milestone.  The time when we talk about Navy Rugby without the need to caveat whether it is men or women.  When I talk rugby with Paula, Loz, Charlie and Jane they are always great convesations.  I can easily envisage, from that group of four, a future Director of Rugby and a future Head Coach for the Senior XV (men - just for clarity!)

Jane's Next Chapter


As mentioned earlier Mike Connolly had the foresight to invite Jane on to his Mariner's TSG.  Mike, as many of you know, is also in the History of Navy Rugby by Alligin Photography Hall of Fame.  In 2018 we also inducted Jane and I have reproduced a paragraph from her entry:

One of the first people I admitted to the Heart of Oak, hall of fame, was David Bedell-Sivright, who was also one of the first inductees to the Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame.  Historians recount frequently that Bedell-Sivright "had a reputation as an aggressive and hard rugby player, as well as a ferocious competitor' and whenever you speak with Jane you realise how much of a fierce competitior she is, no doubt made from the same mould.  Like Jane, Bedell-Sivright, played his rugby at a time when the Union did not have a side to which it awarded caps.  It was not a barrier to entry as his contirbution to Navy Rugby, in the widest sense, was clear to all who studied the history.  Similarly in inducting Jane as one of the first two Women players to the Heart of Oak, hall of fame, her contribution to the progression and playing of the game in the Royal Navy Rugby Union is acknowledged.  A return to sea has forced Jane to stand down from her current administrative duties, but I feel sure that there are a couple more chapters to Jane's story to be added before she finally calls time on her administrative quest.  Her eyes still burn bright with the fire for the fight to promote the Women's game at each and every opportunity.

Well Jane is just about to start writing one of those chapters mentioned and all at the History of Navy Rugby will follow the progress with keen interest. And to finish, since I started with Luther King's refence to stairways/staircases I thought I would finish with Led Zepplin's equally famous use of a stairway as a metaphor.  The last verse of Stairway to Heaven includes:

'When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll'

Good luck in the new role Jane, the Navy has always been 'all of one company' and it was good to hear of your appointment.  Hold true to your aims that have served you in good stead thus far and I am sure will serve Navy Rugby well in the future.

A Final Word


No doubt the Community Game will be keeping a weather eye on Jane in her new role.  It would be great to read more stories from the community side of rugby in the Naval Service, not just the Navy Cup final or the Inverdale Trophy final but more rugby from the ships and units. 
Hopefully we can all look forward to a strong community game on Jane's watch.  It is the soul of the Union and also where the fun is!!
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