An exploration into women’s rugby in Wales and reasons why they drop out

Abstract

Few empirical studies such as Guillet et al (2000) have establish reliable facts regarding 'when' dropout levels occur in women’s sport, but demonstrate rather less reliable when it comes to working out exactly the reasoning as to 'why' they occur. The purpose of this thesis was to therefore identify not only the underlying reasons of withdrawal among female participants within a sport that is regarded as being predominantly a "men’s game" (Carle and Nauright, 1999, p. 55) such as rugby, but to also identify the reason as to why others choose to pursue their involvement and interest within the sport well into adulthood. A qualitative method was used whereby semi-structured interviews were conducted to allow a more personal insight into the participant’s experiences. To retrieve maximum data upon the reasons for withdrawal two former players were selected and the additional participant was an existing player that was used to examine reasoning as to why she chose to pursue her career in rugby and how she overcome some of the issues faced upon them.