Rugby comes to the party
“I must admit the turn-up was a whole lot better than I was expecting, the players have shown real eagerness to come back and compete. Yes, it has taken serious work on the background but the players made it easier for us. The turnup after COVID-19 is impressive; there are a couple of clubs that are struggling financially to get things happening and we are looking for sponsors to assist them,” BRU President shared.
He also highlighted that they are working hard to find sponsors for the national team, the national league and the referees to elevate the standards of the game locally. He said that the weekend games should form the base to build and develop the game, emphasizing the need to incorporate young players and have them actively playing the sport despite the absence of school sport.
“I think the biggest thing is that now everybody understands the imperativeness to have under 20’s and create a feeder system to the top leagues and make the game even better. Unfortunately we lost rugby at schools but we believe with junior rugby program we will ensure that the kids still play. That will also enable us to have junior teams and better players to feed our senior teams, that is our plan and strategy going forward,” Irish stated.
The GRF Hogs went on to stun their close rivals, Canon Jaguars by 29 to 23 to claim the league championship. Andrew Paxinos, the Hogs coach, during a post-match said he was delighted with how their team performed in the final including their consistency throughout the season. “We dominated most of the teams this season; we delivered to a certain extent and at times we didn’t; We wanted to dominate in the forwards, with a scrum which I think we did wrong but we knew it was a final. We went into it with our heads up, we didn’t want to complicate things and I’m glad that we managed to win at the end of the day,” Paxinos shared. According to Irish, plans are underway to divide the country into two halves, north and south, which will cut the traveling costs of clubs, while finals will be played to determine national league champions.