Rugby Union
Girls rising to the challenge
IT might not be the most fashionable sport for schoolgirls to play, but rugby union is proving a big hit with the young female playing members of Bolton RUFC.
Although still very much in its infancy, girls rugby is catching on at Avenue Street thanks to the foresight of the club's development team.
Led by development officer Scott Watson, the club set up an under-15s girls team and handed over the managerial reins to Richard Trist.
And, between them, Scott and Richard are building a growing set-up that currently sees 12 girls playing under its banner.
Although 12 isn't enough to raise a team, Bolton joined forces with Tyldesley to enter a team in a recent tournament and came away victorious.
Bolton beat Manchester and Sandbach 20-0, before inflicting a 19-0 defeat on Furness and Eccles.
"Although we could do with more players, we have had a successful 12 months since starting up," said manager Trist.
"Girls rugby is very much at an embryonic stage. Girls can play in mixed teams with boys until under-12 level, and then they have to be split up for obvious reasons.
"There are ladies teams, but nothing else so we decided to set up under-15s and under-18s teams.
"The standard is very good when you consider that the girls don't have the structured league programme and regular matches that the boys get."
To underline just how good the standard is, the club have two girls in the North-west regional team.
Rebecca Trist and Georgie Greenwood are both products of the Bolton club's youth system, and they are also in the Lancashire team alongside Daisy Greaves, Rachel McCoy and Natalie Dagnall.
Trist admits that the club do struggle to get girls to try the sport, but they have a programme in place to overcome these obstacles.
"Some girls don't want to play because they are nervous about the contact side of the game," said Trist. "However, we run non-contact teams that play tag rugby in the youth games.
"This gives the girls a taste of what rugby is about without the full-on tackling.
"They tend to then want to progress to full contact rugby."
It has been a successful 12 months for the team, and Trist is hoping they can make even more progress in the next year.
Girls under the age of 15 who want more information on joining up can email Richard on rugbygirls@boltonrugby. co.uk.
3:27pm Friday 18th April 2008
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