Jo Yapp named first coach of British & Irish Lions Women

Jo Yapp has been named head coach of the first-ever British & Irish Lions Women’s Team, a landmark appointment that turns the long-discussed idea of a women’s Lions side into a live rugby project. The first tour will come in New Zealand in 2027, where the Lions will play a three-Test series against the Black Ferns, alongside pre-tour fixtures, including one match that will be confirmed later this year.

Yapp said she wants to “create something special” on the inaugural trip, but the scale of the job goes well beyond one summer tour. The former England captain is being asked to build a team identity from scratch, set a selection philosophy across four unions, and decide what the women’s Lions should stand for in a sport where England has historically supplied much of the elite depth. The appointment arrives after the British & Irish Lions and Royal London launched a £3 million Levelling the Playing Field pathways funding grant in April 2024, aimed at strengthening women’s player and coach development across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

That funding matters because it is meant to widen the pool before the squad is chosen. The explicit goal is to prevent the women’s Lions from becoming England in all but name, and Yapp’s role now sits at the center of that effort. Ben Calveley, the Lions chief executive, said her breadth of experience across club and international rugby, including in the southern hemisphere, made her an outstanding candidate.

Yapp brings a substantial coaching and playing background to the post. She won 70 caps for England as a scrum-half, played in three Women’s Rugby World Cups and captained England to the 2006 final. Her coaching record includes England Women Under-20s, Worcester Warriors Women, the Barbarians and, most recently, Australia’s Wallaroos, whom she guided to the quarter-finals of the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025.

She will take a sabbatical from her current post as head of women’s pathway at England Rugby and is expected to work part-time with the Lions from July 2026 before moving into the job full-time in January 2027. The timing gives the women’s Lions a long runway before they tour New Zealand, but it also raises expectations: this is not just the first coach in the team’s history, but the first test of whether the women’s game can match the men’s Lions in prestige, investment and reach.