Tag Rugby Club
The new season is upon us and that means the creation of a new TAG Rugby squad. Here are some of the old faces coupled with some of the new managing a smile for the camera. Next week we hope to be up to the full compliment and with the grass freshly cut, be putting everyone through their paces ready for our first fixture. I am pleased to see that we have some very good new runners this year. There are still some places left in the squad if anyone is interested in joining.
After a long season the St Mary’s TAG Rugby Squad managed to show that a little hard work will pay off. The squad was bolstered by a few extra players and after an unsettled start with the weather, the team knitted together and pulled off some excellent results. They were knocked out of the cup competition by an unfortunate mix up in the scoring but this helped to breathe extra life into tired legs and after a close game in the semi-final they were in the position to defend the crown from last year.
After a tense start they settled to the job at hand and ran in a number of tries to win quite comfortably. St Mary’s are now making the Plate competition their own, maybe next year they will take the next step and focus on the cup!
It was an excellent team effort and an added highlight was for Josh Barrett to also come away with the Top Performing Boy Award out of all those in both competitions.
Congratulations and good luck for next year!
On Wednesday 9th June the first TAG Rugby festival for the Bideford Learning Community was held at Bideford Rugby Club and organised by PETROC; in all there were thirteen teams entered from schools as far away as Hartland and Bradworthy.
The festival was organised into three pools where each team would get to play each other twice. The results from this would then lead into the knockout stages for the Cup and the Plate competitions. This time St Mary’s only took one team with two substitutes enabling a rolling system for when the players became tired.
There was also fun to be had between matches with an information stand run by the local fire and police giving out stickers and also a rowing competition. Luke was a regular competitor and was only narrowly beaten to the best time over 500m.
The team acquitted themselves well building on past experience and through a series of quick hands and clever support play soon established themselves as one of the strong teams in their group scoring regularly. They were narrowly beaten a few times leading to their final standing of won three, drawn two and lost three which enabled them to progress into the Plate competition. The semi-finals were held and the team utilised their flying wingers of Tom and Kayleigh well wining the game and progressing through to the finals.
The final was help on the Chief’s own pitch in heavy rain but this did not dampen any spirits. Once again the team organised themselves well and found supplies of energy helping them to support their team mates well on what was a very large pitch. Once again there was some excellent handling enabling Tom and Kayleigh to be released and use their speed to race to the try line. The final whistle went and signified an excellent win and well deserved trophy – we hope the first of many to come.
Congratulations to the team (Rachel, Jasmin, Kayleigh, Georgia, Tom, Matthew, Tom, Luke, Stephen) and a special thanks to the squad whose combined help produced an excellent finish to the seaso
n.
Once again St Mary’s were able to take two teams to the festival run by Kingsley School at Moreton Park; fortunately this time the weather was befitting the atmosphere – bright and cheerful. The two teams acquitted themselves well with fine ball skills and excellent support play. Numerous players got themselves on the score sheet. Some were very surprised and over the moon with their accomplishments.
Once again Appledore proved too well organised to beat but both teams game them a run for their money. With a little more practise I feel that next time we could be challenging them for the top position.
Well done to all those involved. Once again the spirit of the game was on show with a healthy dose of good sportsmanship. A special thanks should go out to Mr Cairns, our friendly coach driver.
Members of the squad have shown great enthusiasm during the Autumn term and numbers have remained high even after the weather started to turn. They children have shown varying levels of ability but have been very supportive of each other raising the group skill level all round. In November we were able to take to teams plus subs to a festival at Kingsley School to play in front of a capacity crowd. The bad weather did everything to try and dampen the spirits but both teams equipped themselves well showing a high level of sportsmanship, and at the same time, being very competitive on the pitch.
The B team were only narrowly beaten by Appledore who complemented St Mary’s on a hard fought game. To great relief the teams defrosted themselves over the weekend and turned up, eager as ever, for training on the Monday night.
