The exciting growth of women’s rugby in Madagascar is reflected in Dina Razafindratsara’s participation in the Gallagher High Performance Academy WXV 2024.
The Lady Makis qualified for the Women’s Rugby World Cup Sevens for the first time in Cape Town in 2022, a landmark achievement for the game on the African island.
Now Razafindratsara hopes that exchanging ideas with other female coaches from across the rugby world in the Gallagher High Performance Academy will continue her own coaching development and encourage other women to follow her on the coaching pathway.
“For me, this programme is important because it creates an equality of competence, knowledge, and responsibility between men and women in the rugby world,” Razafindratsara told World Rugby.
“Through this programme, coaches will acquire more knowledge and it is also an opportunity to evaluate oneself. It will help push you to achieve your coaching goals by improving yourself.”
Razafindratsara began her own coaching journey in 2016 when she was appointed head coach of a men’s club, a role she held for five years.
She was national assistant coach when Madagascar’s women’s team played their first international against Kenya in 2019, has since been head coach of their Under-18s sevens team and is now head coach of a Second Division women’s team.
Razafindratsara has also benefited from a sporting and cultural exchange programme with the Japan International Co-operation Agency which saw the Lady Makis spend time training in Japan in 2019 and volunteer Japanese coaches working in Madagascar to help grow the game there.
One of those volunteers, Imai Akio, accompanied the Lady Makis to the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Cape Town and he been a major influence on Razafindratsara’s development as a coach.
“Imai Akio is my coach role model because of the way that he communicates with people, the way he plans and how he encourages people to learn and develop,” she said.