Last summer, Charlie Willett quit her job as a sports lawyer to chase the dream of being a full-time women’s rugby player, lining out for Exeter Chiefs in rugby union and making her Ireland debut in rugby league in June 2022.
In advance of this Test match against Italy, she texted head coach John Walley enquiring about the injury cover as Exeter would have to release her to play.
‘I have my own private medical insurance, but because of me being a full-time rugby player it doesn’t cover rugby injuries. When I play union, the Chiefs cover it’
In a text seen by The Irish Times, Walley replied: “Yes, RLI will have player cover under their banner.”
On October 8th, Ireland played Wales in Donnybrook in a Test match. Willett went down with an injury, bringing the game to a halt until she was stretchered off.
“I heard the screaming and it took me a second to put two and two together to realise it was me screaming,” she says.
Following the game Willett approached Walley, and “at that point, I knew it was likely that my ACL had been ruptured and that I was gonna need surgery,” she explained.
“Then Walley said ‘I don’t know about that, I don’t think we’re going to be paying’. I felt like my heart dropped through the floor, I was genuinely in shock, it was hard enough being injured so then I was thinking ‘oh God, how am I going to pay for it?’”
On October 9th, Willett emailed Walley and Jim Reynolds, chairman of Rugby League Ireland (RLI), asking for confirmation that all medical costs, including surgery, would be paid for by RLI. It was only then Willett was told the insurance policy that the women’s team were under has a cap of €3,500 for medical expenses and €250 for physiotherapy.
“The cost of a non-complex ACL could be £8,000 (€9,300),” says Willett, but “when I got my scans back I had a fully torn ACL, two meniscus ruptures, and had also partially dislocated my knee, so I’d pretty much done the full hog.
“I emailed the board back and forth over that two-week period and they were taking a long time to come back to me, but getting the operation was quite urgent cause of the extent of the damage. If you wait the chance of getting it fixed just keeps reducing as the meniscus may have to be removed, leaving you with chronic knee instability. So I was pretty concerned at getting it done quickly.”
Willett was scheduled for the surgery on October 19th and called Reynolds. The RLI board convened a meeting to discuss her injuries.
“I’m in my head thinking, ‘thank God, it’s going to be sorted’,” says Willett.
However, the board didn’t provide a resolution, forcing Willett to have some “stressful conversations” with her boyfriend, and she managed to obtain a £7,000 loan from his parents to fund the surgery.
“As a female athlete, you can kind of accept that you won’t get paid like the men get paid, won’t get same level of facilities/accommodation/food/kit, you kind of accept that as we’re in the growth phase of women’s game; but one thing I’d never thought I’d be stuck for was medical. They’re asking girls to put their bodies on the line for their country, at quite a risk.
“It’s been the most physically and emotionally draining three weeks of my life. It’s horrendous, being injured I lost out on about £2,000 of work.”
Rugby League Ireland, in an email seen by The Irish Times, suggested that they work “in conjunction” to start a GoFundMe campaign for Willett, with RLI increasing the total of their contribution to €5,000. Willett opted to set up her own GoFundMe, separating herself from RLI.
“I was in shock that it was something I had to do, to get an operation that I needed. The rugby community has been brilliant, I’m just kind of hoping that by speaking about it, that people realise the extent of women’s rugby league and how we’re treated.
“I’m incredibly lucky that I have a legal background, and I create content and that I have a platform and an audience. If this had happened to one of the other girls, I don’t know that they would have got the same attention.”
RLI and Jim Reynolds could not be reached for comment.
