Monivea Win Cuisine de France / IRFU Tag Rugby Club Of The Year Award:

Monivea RFC were the winners of the inaugural Cuisine de France / IRFU Tag Rugby Club Of The Year Award, the finals of which were staged at the National Basketball Arena.

On Sunday 24th February 120 mini-rugby players from the four Provincial winning rugby clubs of the 2002 Cuisine de France Tag Rugby Blitz attended Tallaght National Basketball Arena. The event was staged indoors so that the wet outdoor conditions failed to dampen the enthusiasm for everybody on the day.

The four clubs, Malone, Clonakilty, Clondalkin, and Monivea all brought 3 teams made up of under 8’s, U10’s & U12’s. Everybody played a round robin league. Three international rugby players – Shane Byrne, Emmet Byrne and Bob Casey were there to lend their support and they signed autographs and posed for photos with all the teams.

Each tag rugby match lasted 10 minutes with the emphasis on skill, running, handling and sportsmanship. The results for each match were not recorded. Instead each participating team was marked out of ‘5’ under three catagories as follows:

1. Sportsmanship.

2. Tag Rugby Skills.

3. Behaviour.

All of the teams scored very highly in each category with the highest score eventually going to Monivea RFC, Connacht.