Schoolgirls’ rugby is embarking on a new era. The Scottish Women’s Rugby Union (SWRU) hosts its annual general meeting on May 13 and hopes to get its strategy plan for 2007-11 rubber-stamped. The plan seeks to increase participation in the game by recruiting school players but it also wants to keep them when they leave school.
There are encouraging signs, not just in the 15-a-side game but also in sevens. At the end of last month, sevens events were held for under-18s and under-15s in Edinburgh and Inverness on successive days, with more than 100 players in attendance on each day. At Inverness, players from Ulla-pool High, Grantown Grammar and Thurso High took part.
The SWRU used the events for talent identification, and development officer Lindsey Booth was at the Edinburgh event, which included teams from Crieff High and Carrick Academy in Ayrshire. Part of the new strategy will be to get girls’ sevens into the Scottish Rugby Union’s schools’ competitions from next year.
The national sevens competition will be held at Murrayfield on June 2-3, with 32 teams competing.
