Girls Youth Rugby Academy tips off on Monday
An initiative to bring local girls’ rugby to academy level has been started by Newbridge Rugby Club, writes Brian Byrne. The goal of the Girls Youth Rugby Academy is to both encourage girls to begin playing the sport at a younger age and to provide a steady pipeline of talent to the Senior Ladies team.
The initiative tips off next Monday night with a tag rugby session from 7pm for girls born from 2010 to 2013 and will continue on Mondays through the summer. There's no need to book ahead, just turn up and play. Girls born in 2009 are also welcome.
Newbridge RFC currently has about 100 girls involved, which represents a quarter of the club's playing members. That's quite a long way from the position when Paul Treacey began developing the girls' game in 2017. "We have about 30 Senior ladies and 40 youth players now," he says. "We also have around 30 girls who play Minis — they'd be under 8, under 10 and under 12."
Moving the now established girls’ section to academy level involves providing three qualified coaches in each age group, and also a wellbeing package which concentrates on strength and conditioning, athletic assessment and fitness. "We have Wayne Middleton appointed for strength and conditioning development — he previously worked with Kilcullen Ladies Senior footballers. We have Rory McCann in to direct the rugby side." McCann is a former Newbridge RFC player who captained the club to Leinster League Division 1 and has also played All Ireland League Rugby in Belfast and international cricket for Ireland.
The potential for the club through the academy would be to field premier Leinster ladies rugby teams in U14, U16 and U18, all of which will feed into the Senior Ladies team that currently plays in Division 4. "We have a long-term ambition to go all the way to the top of women's rugby," Paul Treacey says.
The number of women's teams playing in Leinster has doubled to around 60 compared to the position five years ago. The core group for the Newbridge club's initial cohort in 2017 was a number of girls who were playing football with Kilcullen GAA. Treacey says it was sometimes difficult, but he's happy with the way it did build to today's girls rugby participation. It turns out that it's also a two-way street, with some of those early rugby players now prominent in the Kilcullen GAA Senior Ladies team.
"They all stand out in that they're very resilient. They get knocked down, they take the contact and they get up again and play on. Rugby builds that into them." He also feels that same sense of resilience will filter through to other aspects of their lives. "The earlier we get them, the better. Last year we started with under-8 girls just to get them introduced sooner to the sport."
The growth in interest from girls in rugby is in some ways a parallel to how they have taken to GAA games, though Treacey suggests that it's not as dramatic. "There are more GAA clubs out there, and Gaelic football for girls is virtually a non-contact sport, which many prefer. We play full contact and that doesn't appeal to all girls, but those that it does appeal to love it."
The summer academy initiative will run through into August. Further information is available from Paul at 086 2624073 or Peter at 086 8252271.
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