JUNIOR REPORT: Schools tournament is a huge boost

For the first time since I’ve arrived here, all six secondary schools in the Scarborough area were present at our year eights’ rugby tournament on Tuesday evening here at Silver Royd.

The school tournaments are a great way to get the youth of the area active, and also offer new players the chance to come to the club and see the great facilities here for themselves.

Knowing all schools are willing to attend our tournaments shows how instrumental Scarborough RUFC is in helping all schools with their rugby delivery, but it is a relationship that’s mutually beneficial.

Having our schools on board with our plans makes it easy for new players to integrate into our junior and mini set ups.

So it really is a win-win scenario for the sport.

As well as this, we also hosted our first-ever girls only secondary school tournament on Wednesday evening, which was great to see.

There has been a real surge in girls and women’s rugby of late, especially in Yorkshire.

I was absolutely thrilled that there were teams entered from St Augustine’s, Filey, Scalby and Graham to compete against one another for the first time.

A special mention has to go to Aishling Robinson, who is one of the teachers up at St Augustine’s School.

As well as helping to bring rugby as a main sport into the girls’ curriculum, Aishling also brought over 50 girls (four teams) with her to the tournament on Wednesday.

To have so many of our youth excited about a new sport and a new challenge, is a direct result of the passion she has brought to her school delivery and sessions she’s taught.

Keep up the good work Ash.

It is no surprise that the growth in women’s and girls rugby has also coincided with a large increase in funding and support from the RFU.

At Scarborough RUFC we are very fortunate to be helped and supported by McCain every step of the way in our plans to help the youth of this area.

The Active Youth Scheme partnership has really progressed over the last couple of seasons and I’m sure it will continue to grow in the future.

Unfortunately last weekend, we had to cancel our minis matrix tournament due to bad weather.

Fixtures were also postponed for our under-13s and under-14s and 15s sides unfortunately.

Despite the weather though, our under-16s and under-17s were able to play away at Middlesbrough and Hullensians respectively.

Alas, both sides lost, but hearing the feedback from players and coaches alike, it was great to see that both sides have learned something in their losses and are excited about their next chance to take to the field.

I’d like to finish this week by offering insight into our Active Youth Mascot of the week initiative.

It is difficult for children to appreciate that the club offers a range of teams at all ages, and that no individual team is alone or isolated from the rest.

Part of our work to help engage our younger players with our senior players was to offer one hard-working player in our mini section the chance to be a mascot for the first team home matches.

This week’s Active Youth Mascot of the week will be Alec Gascoigne who plays in our under-12s.

He is aged 11 and unsurprisingly his favourite sport is rugby.

As well as enjoying watching Sam Burgess play in the recent World Cup, Alec also spends part of his week swimming and playing football.

Alec has only been playing rugby for three to four months now but is showing a lot of potential at such a young age.

Hopefully he’ll enjoy his time as mascot on Saturday and will continue to develop as a player over the course of the season.