Warriors stars pop by to congratulate EK
Club awarded a plum £1000 grant from Rugby Force
Glasgow Warriors duo Scott Cummings and Rob Harley were at Torrance House last week to congraultate East Kilbride Rugby Club on the award of a £1000 grant from the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Rugby Force initiative.
Harley, capped 18 times for his country, and Scotland under-20 international Cummings met with youngsters from East Kilbride’s junior section and posed for pictures with their fans.
Royal Bank RugbyForce 2016 is a nationwide programme that helps grassroots rugby clubs across Scotland to attract new members, its core focus is on forming a legacy and sustainability.
Over 140 clubs took part in the chance to receive a £1000 grant and the weekend was aimed to engage with the local community, recruit new 180616ekrugy_1
members and help the club grow.
Meanwhile, the club’s senior team are moving ever-closer to the start of their new season and enjoyed another useful pre-season outing when they entertained Preston Lodge at Torrance House on Saturday.
The Prestonpans side ply their trade two divisions above their hosts and while it was no great surprise that they edged the encounter there was actually very little between the sides across the four 20-minute quarters.
East Kilbride were slightly under-strength with both last year’s captain, Gareth Jones, and his 2016/17 replacement, Ian Brown, still out with long-term injuries.
They were joined on the sidelines, hopefully only precautionary, by influential forwards Paul Rosie and Scott Shankie, but on the plus side, Callum Aitken played his first game in nearly two years following a bad knee injury and there was a first start in the second-row for under-18 graduate, Euan McLuckie.
Aitken picked up one of the EK tries with Evan Middleton, Eddie Beaton and Richie Murray getting the others.
This Saturday, East Kilbride close out their league preparations with a home fixture against Dalziel.
League action stars on August 27 away to Oban Lorne.