Fresh Faces ‘Give It A Try’ At Inaugural Festival
UCD won the inaugural IRFU Freshers ‘Give It A Try’ Festival this week with teams from five third level institutions taking part.
A series of ‘Give It A Try’ sessions for female players took place in third level colleges and universities across Ireland throughout September and October. These sessions were designed to get Freshers, or those from other years that were new to rugby, involved in the game.
In order to keep these new players training and playing the game of rugby, each college that took part in the GIAT Roadshows was also encouraged to send their team(s) of freshers to the inaugural Freshers Festival on Wednesday this week at UCD.
All teams taking part in the Festival were of a similar standard and offered new players the opportunity to take part in a tournament.
Five colleges took part in the festival on November 15 – DCU, Queen’s University, Trinity College, UCD and the University of Ulster. The University of Ulster team comprised of players from both Coleraine and Jordanstown campuses. In the spirit of the game, Queen’s also travelled down to UCD with University of Ulster!
Around 60 players took to UCD’s 3G pitch with each team playing four games before the top two placed teams played in a final.
The style of game was X7s with two games running simultaneously. X7s suits those new to the game as it encompasses all aspects of rugby but is played on a smaller pitch and over a shorter time.
On the day, the final was between UCD and Trinity College. UCD were victorious on home soil but it was a hard-fought final between the rival Dublin universities.