This year, the Roots & All project is going to be a bit different. There are four clubs altogether and they will take turns by giving updates on their seasons every two weeks. We have been introduced to three of them already – Claremorris are up tonight while Queens will feature next week. On Thursday we’ll hear more from Naas RFC, and our fourth club is a bit of a surprise…you’ll have to wait until a bit longer to find out who they are!
So another new season begins, with players and coaches both keen to get the back into the thick of the action. I doubt some players will be as keen after a few rounds of sprints but that is a different story. After a busy summer of launching our ‘Buy a Sod’ fundraiser(More on that throughout the season) and our very successful Tag rugby league things are still a little quite on the playing front but as always off the pitch activity is in full flow.
Our season got underway last Tuesday night with our oldest team the U17’s starting back in the local boxing club. It was a great way to start as the majority of lads had never stepped foot in the boxing club before so this was a novelty more than anything else. The training was pretty intense and some lads were sweating from an early stage but overall I think they enjoyed the session. For the first night there was a good turnout with the majority of lasts season’s players returning. The U14 and U15 teams also retuned last week with again a very encouraging numbers showing.
We will continue to train in the gym for the next 6 weeks approximately. We are hoping this gym work will mean we have less fitness training to do once we hit the pitch. The plan is start back with ball in hand in the next two weeks and so gets the lads out twice a week for the first couple of weeks. The mini rugby planning is also in full flow. With a return on September 15th provisionally pencilled in. We are planning to have this as an open day where all local kids can come along and give rugby a try. We will encourage as many possible to come along to this open day. Registration for the new mini rugby season will then take place.
For the next couple of weeks we will be concentrating on getting all our youths teams out and on to the pitch and also finalising the mini rugby schedule anticipation of the new season.
