Blink and you may miss a little bit of history being made at National Stadium tomorrow.

After a six-year absence, women’s contact rugby returns to the Island when the national team’s development squad, The Dark & Stormies, take on New York Rugby Club.

The sides will play a sevens match just before Saracens and Bermuda Barbarians take to the field, the first time since 2008 that Bermuda’s women have played on home soil.

“We’re a little low on the billing, but we’ll be worth watching,” Andrew Crichton, the national team coach, said. “We’re going to play a high-tempo game, spread the ball very wide, be aggressive — blink and you’ll miss it.”

That the team are in a position to play at all is something of an achievement, given that they only returned into being 18 months ago, when they competed at the New York Sevens in November 2012.

The 11-women squad is one short of the 12 that most sevens teams have and, as the poor relation of the game on the Island, is locked in what Crichton calls “a perpetual struggle” to attract players and support.

In reality, the national team and development squad are one and the same, but with six Bermudian members, the development monikor allows Bermuda to ignore the three-year residency rule that applies to national team qualification.

“It’s an ongoing process to try and encourage other women to give it a go,” Crichton said. “If you get one in, and she enjoys it, and she has friends, before you know it you get two or three off the back of that. But it is a perpetual struggle.

“We’re lucky at the moment that the squad on Saturday is 70 per cent Bermudian. That’s an important thing as well because we’re trying to develop a long-term sustainable programme.”

Attracting new talent, be it from in the schools, or the workplace, is already paying dividends. Three of tomorrow’s matchday squad — Gemma Godfrey, Jo Godfrey and Gillian Cross — will be making their debuts for the team, while three of the Island’s most talented youngsters — Haley Place, Corrie Cross, and Angele Basden — will also be involved, but not playing.

“They [the juniors] will be part of the squad,” Crichton said. “They’ll do the warm-up, do the preparation, see what’s involved, and what will be expected of them when it’s their turn.”

Crichton has been involved with the women’s team for the past 18 months, when they returned in their existing form. The nucleus of the squad, which includes the likes of Mika Tomika, the captain, and Erica McArthur, a Saltus teacher who played for London Welsh for seven seasons, have been together since the start.

Adding to and shaping that nucleus is Crichton’s most immediate task, but practice and training can only do so much.

“There has always been a hard core of women who have played contact rugby and wanted that opportunity on the Island,” he said. “But it’s very difficult with the player base that we have on Island to play games domestically, so we have to rely on travelling and, or, inviting teams here.

“The squad has come on really well over the past year, 18 months, but it is match practice that we need.”

Bermuda squad: Mika Tomita (captain), Amanda Swan, Kelli Nusum, Anthi Xipolia, Gemma Godfrey, Karly Alleyne, Erica McArthur, Jo Godfrey, Deneka Borden, Aleisha James, Gillian Cross. Coach: Andrew Crichton. Team manager: Kerry Heigham.