Connacht And Leinster Girls ‘Give It A Try’
More and more girls have decided to ‘Give It A Try’ and taken up rugby. There has been great growth in playing numbers in Connacht and Leinster recently.
Connacht Rugby can now boast of having an impressive 13 clubs who have girls minis playing in regular fun blitz days.
This movement started a number of years ago with Connacht Women’s Development Officer Wendy Hickey realising that if the clubs separated their boys and girls in mini training, the girls’ minis soon grew in numbers.
The figure today has been helped by the ‘Give it a Try – Girls Minis‘ initiative rolled out by the IRFU at the beginning of September.
“It’s great to see so many young girls wanting to play rugby. Due to the Ireland Women’s success in the Women’s Rugby World Cup and the amount of publicity they received back here in Ireland as a result, the young girls in Connacht are going out and trying to find rugby clubs to play in,” said Hickey.
“Some of our girls still play with the boys mini rugby which is great, however, we’ve now got 13 clubs with girls minis teams and this number is rising.”
Girls mini rugby is also gathering pace in Leinster. Last Sunday saw the first Halloween Girls Mini Rugby Festival take place at NUIM Barnhall RFC.
Over 120 girls, from nine clubs, took to the field in two age catergories, Under-10s and Under-12s. The growth of girls mini rugby so far this season has been exceptional in all areas of the province, with exclusive girls teams now in existence at Wicklow, Tullamore, Terenure, Blackrock, Greystones, Athy, Ratoath and Barnhall, as well as Naas, Navan, Dundalk, Skerries, Westmanstown and others.
The ‘Give it a Try – Girls Minis‘ IRFU initiative is still available for use. If your club wish to set up a girls’ minis section you can take advantage of a step by step guide which will assist you along the way.
On top of this, all clubs who start up a girls’ mini rugby section will receive a ‘Give it a Try – Girls Minis’ resource pack containing six balls, a set of bibs, cones and a large kit bag.
For more information on how your club can increase their girls’ minis participation numbers, check out www.irishrugby.ie/giveitatry and download your guide now.