The Timeline of Expansion  The women’s rugby movement started with the first match ever recorded in Cardiff Arms Park, Wales in 1917. This match was played by two all women teams as a charity fundraiser for troops during World War I. At that time, women participating in traditionally male sports was frowned upon, so the movement fizzled out once troops returned from the war.   There was a resurgence of women’s rugby in the 1970s and 80s when women began to seriously challenge