How DMP Sharks secured two historic Premier 15s wins
As eyes are cast down to the foot of the Premier 15s table, one arrives at two teams with very different fortunes.
DMP Sharks and Wasps Women have played each other twice in three weeks with the former prevailing 66-17 with both bonus points. When Wasps travelled north to Darlington, it was the Sharks’ first win since April 2021 and solidified the demise of one of the country’s most recognisable and successful franchises.
It was also the first time in the history of the Premier 15s that Wasps had lost to the Darlington based Sharks.
Both these clubs faced financial uncertainty before the start of the 2022/23 season. As DMP resorted to crowdfunding to meet the minimum operating standards, Wasps were engulfed with rumours of their whole club collapsing.
Twelve rounds of the league later and while DMP have begun to show signs of improvement, their London rivals could only watch on as an exodus of players began, including a plethora of Red Roses such as Claudia McDonald and Maud Muir.
DMP owe their thanks in part to the generosity of the rugby community but also new front of shirt sponsors, Vodafone allowing the team to continue their objective of fighting for rugby in the northeast.
“It’s been a hell of a journey with lots of complexity in it’s great to get the success now,” said Mark Luffman, Sharks Performance Manager.
“It’s great we’ve been able to strengthen the squad and it’s been a real rollercoaster of a journey. Winning gives everyone a big boost. I think the girls have played some really good stuff the past couple of weeks and we’ve got nine games to go so really we’re looking to see how we can built on this,” he added.
Following a fundraising campaign, the public helped raise over £32,000 to secure another season in the Premier 15s.
Vodafone stepped in with sponsorship to cover the whole £50,000 which was then combined with the crowdfunding total to put the club in a far better financial position than they could have hoped for.
Eyebrows will have been raised back in January following the signing spree that brought half a dozen fresh faces to Darlington following such a complicated financial start to the season.
However, Luffman was keen to stress that basic club needs were met before the league kicked off.
He explained: “The key priorities were covering the essential running costs of a team in the Premier 15s such as travel, accommodation and medical fees. Our fundraising, coupled with the support of a number of longstanding sponsors, allowed us to meet those costs before the start of the season.
“The additional funds then went towards growing the women’s programme at the Sharks. This helped support our players in a number of ways and helped facilitate some community outreach programmes in the local area.
“While we knew that money wasn’t going to be spent immediately we always hoped that there would be some players available after the world cup and is it turned out we’ve managed to get the players over from America and they’ve been fantastic but we also got some players down from Scotland.”
One USA Eagle who has made an immediate impact is Tess Feury. The versatile back, who was originally destined for Wasps before the season, was impressed by the training environment the club has managed to create, despite the financial difficulties.
The American said: “We were no stranger to DMP’s history, we knew that it would be a challenging environment for all sorts of reasons to come into but I think that’s also a really exciting opportunity and that’s kind of the way we geared it in our heads that we could come in and celebrate the small wins.
“USA Rugby are not fully professionalised so we aren’t compensated for our time when we’re not playing under USA Rugby.
“Anything outside of the USA is pretty much on our own so it really is a leap of faith coming over here and putting your life and your work on hold to play in the Prem but we know that’s what we want to do and need to do to keep playing at a high level and keep getting better,” Feury outlined.
The 26-year-old Eagle who played in the 2021 World Cup, has been named as part of the USA Eagles’ Player Pool for the upcoming Pacific Four Series.
Feury discussed the decision to travel the Premier 15s: “A lot of our national team pool players want to be coming over to play in the Prem in order to play that highest level of rugby at the weekends.
“We didn’t really know who would be coming over to play so it ended up working out with the five Americans we have.
“We have an array of positions and a couple of Scotland signings to round off the roster and I really think we’ve been able to make an impact already with a really talented group of DMP players.”
It remains to be seen how many of DMP’s players will depart at the end of the season but for now the club is enjoying victory which for the Sharks is like London buses. They wait years for a win to come and then two come in quick succession.
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