All set for school play-offs

This week Scarborough RUFC will be hosting the annual Scarborough/Ryedale play-off finals to see which school teams of these regions will represent East Yorkshire in future tournaments.

Over the winter months all of our secondary schools were taking part in fixtures against one another to see who would be representing the Scarborough area.

Both Filey and Scalby Schools were unfortunate not to see a side represented, and Pindar looked to be getting stronger as each week progressed.

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But the plaudits have to go to both St Augustine’s and Graham, with both of them winning the preliminary tournaments at each age group, from years seven to year 11.

Tonight (Thursday February 26), the finals will take place, between 4pm-6pm at Silver Royd:

Year 7: St Augustine’s v Lady Lumleys

Year 8: Graham v Malton & Ryedale

Year 9: St Augustine’s v Malton

Year 10: Graham v Malton

Year 11: Graham v Ryedale

As well as this being a great opportunity to promote rugby within schools, these tournaments have also offered invaluable experience to some of Scarborough Sixth Form’s pro-active students.

Jordan Wakeham, Cameron Johnson and Drew Govier have all volunteered to referee at the tournament and help in its organisation.

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There have also been other volunteers throughout these fixtures and every single one has been invaluable to them going ahead.

Both Scarborough RUFC and all our local schools owe them a lot of gratitude for this.

Over the last few days Scarborough RUFC also played host to a number of RFU coaching courses, in an attempt to offer relevant education to all of our volunteer coaches.

These courses not only practiced good safety, but also offered our coaches more knowledge in the game which I’m sure will prove to be priceless in future years.

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We are always looking to recruit more coaches within our junior set-up, and with girls rugby very close to its launch, we will be in need of more volunteer coaches than ever before.

If you have any interest in coaching please get in touch with me on [email protected].

As a club, Scarborough RUFC is very supportive of its coaching team and will always offer coaching development opportunities through experience and education.

I would also like to offer my congratulations to Tom Anderson and Sean Mould who both represented Yorkshire last week.

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Pictured above, both have been regular players in Scarborough’s under-15s side “Odin’s Warriors”.

It is wonderful to see our youth section offering young players the coaching they need to be selected for the county and I’m sure these lads will be the first of many in the coming years.

A big congratulations to both Sean and Tom, with a bit of luck they will get their chance to perform at an even higher level in the future.

On Sunday our junior colts side (under-17s) will be playing away at Ripon in the first round of the Yorkshire Cup and despite a comprehensive 29-0 victory away at Heath last week, losing out on securing the league title after coming so close, was a painful way to finish the season.

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I’m sure this side will be targeting the cup as their last chance of silverware and they have every reason to be confident.

This team has a fantastic spirit and ability to match any other, the very best of luck to them this weekend.

Sunday will also see our minis (under-sixes to under-12s) returning to Silver Royd for training, with both our under-15s and under-16s playing against teams from York at home.

Kick-off for these fixtures will be at 11am, and following these fixtures, our women’s team the Valkyries will be playing their third fixture at home against Acklam.

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On the March 2 at 6pm, Yorkshire Carnegie will be hosting a training session for our women’s team and the public are more than welcome to attend the open session.

Women’s rugby has come on brilliantly in the last year and it is fitting that Yorkshire Carnegie are paying tribute to that by offering the club this service.

The recent success of the team has encouraged a number of younger girls to attend training, and we are now in a position to offer them a fixture in the next fortnight.

This will be the first ever time an under-13s girls only side will have represented Scarborough Rugby Club which is a fantastic progression for rugby in this town.

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As well as these developments, last week I was also in attendance at an RFU women’s development meeting alongside Niki Duncan our ladies team manager.

After a lot of positive discussion, it became clear that our ladies are very close to securing a place in an East Yorkshire league next year, which is fantastic news for the team and for Scarborough RUFC.

The league will offer more fixtures and more competition, but like with any challenge the ladies have been set thus far, I’m sure they will embrace this and perform to an even higher level.

Thanks for reading,

Tomasz