A Golden Future

Robbie Owen, Wales

“See It. Believe It.” is a powerful storytelling campaign, launched in partnership with Vodafone, that inspires new audiences to watch women’s rugby by challenging the perceptions that exist around the game, and celebrating the sport. In a landmark year for the women’s game, these stories showcase the skill, physicality, and competitiveness that define the sport through the eyes of elite players, pathway players, and fans.

Robbie Owen is a lifelong rugby fan and content creator, hosting the YouTube channel Squidge Rugby with his brother Will. He turned his passion for women’s rugby into content that reaches thousands of fans worldwide, helping grow the sport and inspire a new generation of enthusiasts.

My name is Robbie, and I was just three days old when I was introduced to rugby. Jonah Lomu’s infamous 1995 rampage against England was watched from my parents’ lap while we were still in the hospital. Growing up in a Welsh household in England, rugby was always on TV. 

For many fans who start with the men’s game, women’s rugby is something they discover later, but not for me. I watched nearly every minute of the 2010 Women’s Rugby World Cup, and would have continued to follow the women’s game with the same ferocity as the men had it not taken another eight years for every international game to be broadcast.

Thinking Differently 

I had been writing and making videos online since I was eight or nine years old, but nothing ever stuck. I had always assumed my voice did not fit with rugby, that the game had to be covered in a certain way. But after writing a few pieces for the blog Blood & Mud, I started to think differently.

In 2017, I fell into a job I was extremely bad at and did not enjoy. I spent most days daydreaming, and one of those daydreams was about an in-depth, analytical rugby video nobody seemed to be making. I quit the job and poured everything into making it. 

The first one went down well, so I made another. And after a few videos, the channel suddenly took off. The subscriber count jumped into the thousands, and now more than 700,000 people have watched that early piece.

Alongside my brother Will, I built what became Squidge Rugby. Things spiralled into something way beyond my wildest dreams in a matter of months. For the past few years, rugby has been the centrepiece of my life: weekends spent watching it live, weekdays spent running over games repeatedly, writing scripts that became the foundation of the channel. 

The channel has now consumed almost eight years of my life, an exhausting but consistently rewarding adventure, and proof that my voice, against my early doubts, does belong in rugby.

The recent platforming of women’s rugby has coincided with my career and the growth of our channel and it has become the part of the sport I find most invigorating. There is so much energy and excitement around women’s rugby - something that’s reawakened the same appetite I had as a kid, desperate to watch the game I had fallen in love with.

Ironing For Wales

One of my favourite memories is from Ireland vs Wales in Dublin in the 2022 Women’s Six Nations. Ireland had started well with two early tries, but Wales stayed in touch. With seven minutes to go, Donna Rose scores to put Wales in front.

I had just moved into a new flat, and the sofa hadn’t arrived, so I was on my feet the entire match. With two minutes on the clock, Hannah Dallavalle (then Jones) flashes blindside, throws a dummy, and scores. All of a sudden, Wales were eight points clear.

Watching rugby was always a family tradition. Since I was a kid, Wales seemed to never win when my mum sat down to watch, but fared even worse when she ignored it completely. We worked out a solution: she would have to do the ironing while Wales played. This quickly turned into a ritual, with lore and rules. Some players perform best on white shirts, some on duvet covers, others on T-shirts. Over the years, this has extended to the women’s team. Sisilia Tuipulotu is at her best on pillow covers.

Connecting With The Game

Vodafone is the Founding Principal Partner to the Welsh national women’s team and has helped massively to connect fans and players with social media content, such as the excellent HerStory series chronicling Wales behind the scenes, or the more recent Daffodils.

Thanks to the piece Vodafone made with Kate Williams around her first cap, she went from a name on a team sheet to someone I felt immensely invested in. IT is content like this, as well as busting the misconceptions about the women’s game, that forms part of Vodafone’s ‘See It. Believe It.’ Campaign. It is all about connecting current fans and new audiences to the heart of the game, especially during what is a landmark year for the sport.

In the last five years, crowds in women’s rugby have grown twentyfold. And it is great to see the collective push to keep that momentum going. Despite the surge in interest, the welcoming, friendly, celebratory atmosphere I felt when I first watched Wales Women, with only 2,000 in the crowd, remains, welcoming everyone with open arms.