Thoughts on Tournaments and Competitions

June 14th, 2006

As you can see from next year’s girls dates, there are plenty of opportunities to take part in festivals of one kind or another.

I’ve watched several tournaments over the last season, and several themes are clear from all of them:

• There is room for all. Amongst the 300 girls at the Herts 7s this May, there were teams at both age groups for whom this was almost their first fixture. At the other end of the skill spectrum, the likes of Basildon (with a little help from Norfolk friends) and Welwyn Garden City played some of the most exciting rugby you could wish to see anywhere.
• Everybody gets a chance to win. After the pool stage, teams play for awards agaisnt teams fo a similar standard. The less experienced can finsh the day scoring tries in the ‘plate’ or ‘bowl’ competition, even if they lost to much stronger opposition earlier in the day.
• Everybody gets to play. In girls rugby, we are still very relaxed about lending players to each other.
• It can be tough to lose in the final, but it is very unusual to see a team go home without great big grins, having had a wonderful day.

You may notice that there is a national club cup in amongst the dates for next season. In this young sport, only the biggest clubs in girls’ rugby can field a strong full team by themselves, so most clubs who enter do so on a ‘cluster club’ basis. This may be a different approach to boys’ or men’s rugby, but it does provide another opportunity for girls to play a full match with a full team - and we need as many of those as we can get.

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