Roots & All is a project where we pick a few teams that don’t normally make the spotlight week in week out and feature them regularly throughout an entire campaign.
We’re off and running for another season. Some of our youth teams have been sweating the circuits trail over the last number of weeks in the boxing club but finally this week we are getting ball in hand and muck on the jersey.
As some of you may be aware we have no facilities of our own and so have to rely on the generosity of others for training and playing games. Hopefully all that will change but more about that later in the season. We have been in talks with a local GAA club who have in last week given us permission to use their pitches for our youth rugby training sessions. Their pitches are located on the outskirts of the town so they are ideally located for all our players to access over the course of the season. This is a great example of how two sports organizations can come together for the greater good and we would like to thank all those within the GAA club who have allowed us use their facilities for the upcoming season.
All this means there are some tough weeks ahead for our youths on the pitch while off it, the fixtures for the season will be complied. Hopefully we will have a clearer picture of how the season will unfold and a full fixture plan once we attend the Connacht branch youth meeting this Wednesday night in the Sportground in Galway.
Preparation for our mini’s is in full flow and since I wrote last the club received a great boost. At the yearly Connacht rugby mini rugby meeting held last week our own Kevin O’Malley was the unanimous choice as the new Connacht rugby mini rugby chairperson. In his new role Kevin will liaise with all the clubs in Connacht in relation to mini rugby fixtures and Connacht blitzes. He will also be the voice for mini rugby clubs within the Connacht branch.
In terms of our own season it all kicks off this Saturday the 15th with an open day for all kids. The open day on the 15th and also the 22nd will be for all boys and girls who want to give rugby a go before committing fully for the new season. These open days will be aimed new players and all our existing players. We hope by holding these two open days it will boost our membership for the coming season.
For the next couple of weeks we will be concentrating on getting all our youth teams out on the pitch and possibly getting some game time, meanwhile for our mini’s it will all about the open days and the start of the new mini rugby season.
