Lions Women and Black Ferns coaches meet before historic tour
The coaches who will face each other on the first Lions Women's tour have met in person for the first time.
Jo Yapp, head coach of the Lions Women, sat down with New Zealand Women head coach Whitney Hansen in a hotel in Shepperton. Their joint interview was recorded for a BBC Rugby Union Weekly special podcast, released on 30 September 2026 BBC.
New Zealand will host that inaugural tour. The Black Ferns, as New Zealand's women's national team are known, will be the hosts. Tickets have now gone on sale.
Yapp and Hansen had never met face to face before. That gave the conversation an edge. Two rivals, talking openly before a single ball has been kicked.
Hansen looked outside rugby for ideas. She said the women's game could learn from darts on entertainment and experience. She had been to a darts event in London that fills stadiums. Rugby, she suggested, should think harder about noise, colour and the night out around the match.
Yapp talked about opening the doors. She said she is open to cameras coming inside the Lions camp for a documentary on the first tour and the journey to reach it. Documentaries have been a staple of men's Lions tours since a film followed the 1997 trip to South Africa.
There is history on both sides of the table. Hansen is the daughter of Sir Steve Hansen. He led the All Blacks to World Cup victory as head coach in 2015 and was an assistant in their 2011 triumph. Whitney now leads the Black Ferns through to the end of 2027, a team that won the World Cup on home soil in 2022.
She spoke honestly about that home win. New Zealand Rugby "probably didn't nail it" when it came to capitalising on 2022 to push the women's game forward. It was a frank line. Few head coaches criticise their own union so directly.
Yapp knows about building from scratch. In December 2023, Rugby Australia appointed her as the Wallaroos' first full-time head coach. Her appointment as head coach of the first-ever British and Irish Lions Women's team was announced on 27 May 2026.
There was lightness too. Both coaches laughed off the idea of a darts-style walk-on or a half-time dance-off.
For fans, this is the starting whistle off the pitch. The tickets are live. The coaches are talking. The countdown to New Zealand has begun.
