The Emerging Schools tournament - sponsored by The Daily Mail - has been running for some years, and the schools final at Twickenham is now an established (and very successful) event. Last year - for the first time - some girls schools were included in a relatively small scale pilot event, but it caught the headlines and so next season its going national.
Grants will be available through Herts Sports Partnership (ie. Amanda) to get coaches into schools across the county. The plan is to have district level events in the autumn, leading to a county tournament in February. The best teams from that will go onto regional finals on 11th March and the national final at Twickenham on 5th May.
Clearly a base of girls playing rugby at school must benefit clubs, so if at all possible you will be (indeed probably are already being) encouraged to work with your local schools to get this going.
But clearly NOW is the time to start. If you leave it until September then local PE teachers will already have their plans for the year in place and you're going to miss out. To get schools up and running sufficient for the district and county tournaments you really need to be able to hit the ground running at the start of the Autumn term.
One thing in everyone's favour will be that the World Cup in Canada will be taking place at the beginning of September, with a real chance of England success that can be used to develop interest in the game (its always good to be associated with a sport that England can win at!).
So try to have a word with your local PE teachers now - they'll probably be pretty supportive. If you have girls from your club at a particular school obviously that will give you a great base to build on.
This really is a brilliant opportunity for us to use. A new national junior tournament building on a successful international team just at a time when all the other, higher profile, international teams are an embarrassment. What more could we want?
U14 "Emerging Schools" Competition rules:
Basically as standard RFUW U14 rugby, but with a few odd tweaks:
- Half pitch
(You will recall that the club game is going full pitch) - Full contact
- Uncontested scrums
(No option for contested - unlike the club game next season) - Tactical kicking is allowed
- Hand-offs permitted chest and below
- No conversions
- Re-starts after tries are scrums, put in to the conceding team
(Possibly the most significant difference) - Size 4 ball
- 12 a-side (at present 5 in the scrum but RFUW are looking to change this to 6)
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