Alhambra-Union has improved amenities and it has a thoughtful club member and a $30,000 prize from Bunnings to thank for it.
The massively overqualified Farah Palmer even made the trip down to Dunedin to help mark the occasion.
The former Black Ferns captain and New Zealand Rugby deputy chairwoman played for the club in the late 1990s.
The old ablutions block was designed in 1968 with men in mind and did not meet the needs of the club’s female players.
Alhambra-Union has Katie Hensman to thank for the improvements. She came up with the idea of entering the Bunnings rugby assist programme, which invites rugby clubs across the country to apply for products and materials to upgrade their clubs, as part of the company’s sponsorship of New Zealand Rugby.
Hensman, who plays for the Alhambra-Union premier team, said the old facilities were lacking.
She submitted a plan of what the club wanted to do and got the good news last August.
"The guts of my pitch was the fact we had a squad of 42 players in our premier team and very few of them felt comfortable using the bathroom at AU," she said.
"With women’s rugby in general developing, if we wanted to be part of that, we needed to provide a space which was safe for women."
The shower and toilet area in the downstairs changing area was gutted and rebuilt to a more gender-neutral design.
Palmer said she wanted to come down to support "that kind of ‘go get it’ attitude".
She was also thrilled to hear Otago Rugby Football Union has added a new development grade below the premier grade this season to help support the growth of women’s rugby.
"Otago has always been a breeding ground for the Black Ferns," Palmer said.
"I had a look at the stats and Otago is one of the only regions where it [the number of female players] has actually gone up."
Covid had been a setback for many regions, but Otago had more female players than before the pandemic, she said.
There has been a push both regionally and nationally to build up women’s rugby.
Super Rugby Aupiki was introduced this year as a step towards creating professional pathways for women.
"We can always go faster, but I think we are definitely taking a step in the right direction," Palmer said.
"We’ve invested $51million into girls’ and women’s rugby this year — $10million of that towards the Rugby World Cup.
"What we don’t want to do is have all of this activity come to a complete halt once the Rugby World Cup is finished. I want to make sure we keep our foot on the pedal and keep helping amazing people like Katie."
