The World Rugby Women’s High Performance Referee Manager appears to have her hands full at the moment.

Managerial and parental roles are keeping her fully occupied during the Women’s Rugby World Cup tournament and her husband and two young boys accompanying her on this rugby odyssey are making sure the non-rugby roles get equal attention, commitment and dedication.

Behind that cold corporate sporting title ‘Women’s high performance match referee manager’ lies the name of one of women’s rugby’s great pathfinders.

For those of us who covered the women’s international game when there was just one man and his dog watching from the sidelines, the name and the face are reassuringly familiar it is that of Alhambra Nievas González. 

There is a kind of strength that doesn’t roar, it echoes. Alhambra carries such strength, woven from Andalusian sunrises, the whisper of the Sierra Nevada winds, and the sound of a rugby ball hitting green grass.

Her name taken from Granada’s fabled palace speaks of heritage and grace, qualities that she carries in abundance.

She was 19 when rugby claimed her. It wasn’t love at first sight, it was more like a meandering mountain river finding its course and that river continues to flow occasionally changing its direction.

Between her studies in telecommunications engineering, she found herself drawn to the oval ball, to the grit and values of a sport that was to shape her life.

She wore the bright red shirt of Spain with pride, skill, and great determination, but the rugby gods were already shaping her destiny.

In 2006, at a children’s tournament, she was handed a whistle and the rest as they say is history.

The higher she began to climb, the more the seemingly immovable barriers began to fall. 

From local fields to world arenas, she continued to rise in relentless and determined steps: Sevens tournaments, Rugby World Cups, Olympic qualifiers and then Rio 2016 and the Olympic sevens final beneath a golden Brazilian sun.

That same year, history put its arm around her shoulder as she became the first woman to referee a men’s international match and the first female World Rugby Referee of the year.

In 2018, she hung up her whistle, but this was not an ending, it was a new beginning as World Rugby named her Referee Development Manager.

As a result, her influence began to stretch way beyond the sport and the matches she alone could call.

She was shaping voices, building confidence, turning first-time referees into commanding presences.

Even in the stillness of a pandemic, she found ways to keep the game alive launching a Virtual High-Performance Academy where young women and men could still chase the dream she had once caught.

Alhambra Nievas is not just a woman who blew a whistle. She is a lighthouse in a sport that for too long thought the sea was only for men.

When the history of rugby is told, there will be a chapter where the crowd is quiet, and where a lone whistle cuts through, it is Alhambra’s whistle, and everything changes.

Rugby referees the world over could not have a better team-mate alongside them, she has been there and done it and thanks to her, it will be that little bit easier for those that follow.

Working alongside Ali as the Elite Women’s 15s Match Officials Head Coach is another trailblazer former Irish international player and world class referee Joy Neville.

Alhambra and Joy have not only been there done it and got the T shirt, they actually designed and printed the T shirt themselves, such has been their influence on the women’s game.

For Alhambra, Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 will be another journey on that meandering mountain river as she continues to inspire the new generation of match officials.

Vamos Amiga !