Bishopton turn in a warrior display
Glasgow players lend a hand at RugbyForce Day
Craig Ritchie
Glasgow Warriors stars Ryan Wilson and Jonny Gray brought the brute force as everyone chipped in for RugbyForce Day at Bishopton RFC.
Wilson and Gray were joined by a team of over 30 volunteers from the club to help with resizing and moving the pitch, raising new posts, deep cleaning and clearing out the changing rooms and updating the facilities in a previously unused third changing room.
Everyone arrived bright and early as a dedicated crew gathered at the club at 7.30am to finish the preparations of the new pitch markings.
As the day moved on the foundations for the posts got deeper and the hard task of raising the posts into position started.
It took around 20 people to man the support ropes and heave the posts into position which was no easy feat.
This became evident when first XV stalwart – and the man in charge – Matthew Wallace shouted: “Right down the other end and we go again.”
There was disbelief that there was no rest in between the two posts going up – but it’s always best to get the hard jobs out the way early on.
With the posts now in place, the more specialised building work was going on around the back of the club with the front row leading the charge.
Cousins Ryan and Bob Moore learnt their trades as an electrician and joiner respectively, to help get a previously unused container to a place where proper work could start.
This will be very useful for the club moving forward now that the ladies section is up and running, allowing the women’s team to make this their own space.
Back out on the training area, Wilson and Gray were getting to meet the future of Bishopton Rugby and putting the club’s junior section through their paces in a series of handling and bag exercises.
Gray then took to playing touch rugby with members from the seniors, ladies and Under-18s team while Wilson was teaching the juniors a new trick that could be very handy in keeping an opposition guessing just what you might do next.
This was all followed up by a Q&A session for the whole club.
The day was rounded off as Bishopton’s Royal Bank RugbyForce Young Ambassador Andrew Carey got the chance to put some questions to the Scotland Caps.
A club spokesman added: “All in all it was another outstanding day down at Holmpark with members from all areas of the club coming together to show what makes our club great.”