Come and play rugby league with the North Herts Crusaders

North Hertfordshire is now firmly on the Rugby League map with the formation of North Herts Crusaders, which will be based out of and sharing the facilities of Letchworth Garden City Rugby Union Club at Legends Land, Baldock Road, Letchworth Garden City SG6 2EN.

North Herts Crusaders was set up during the winter in preparation for their inaugural season in the East Division in the summer of 2012. The teams they will be playing against are listed below.

Bedford Tigers
Bury Titans (Bury St Edmunds)
Kings Lynn Black Knights
Milton Keynes Wolves
North Herts Crusaders (Letchworth Garden City)
St. Ives Roosters

There will also be a National Cup competition which will run alongside the league, which gives the Crusaders a chance of playing some of the top clubs in the country and the possibility of picking up some silverware.

Rugby League club is traditionally played in the North of England however the sport is growing in popularity in the south now too. North Hertfordshire now has its very own Club which should attract fans and players from across the region to play and watch games.

Liam Corcoran the founding Chairman said “In North Hertfordshire we have a number of large Rugby Union clubs and it is hoped we can attract players from across North Hertfordshire and beyond to come and help make North Herts Crusaders a major force in Rugby League”.

“The great thing about running a Rugby League Club is that there is virtually no cross over in terms of seasons dates, Rugby League being played in the summer and Rugby Union in winter. Therefore the two forms of rugby compliment each other perfectly and hopefully build camaraderie and friendships with players from different areas”.

“There was a strong demand for Rugby League club in Hertfordshire and it was felt that it was a great way to keep fit during the summer”.

“The desire for playing Rugby League in the area has been immense and we have already had over 35 players sign a intention to play declaration. We are looking to run more than one team so we are looking to run a 2^nd as often as we can. In the future we hope to grow and introduce a ladies team, junior and mini sections”.

“We essentially aim to provide a sport that was previously unavailable in North Hertfordshire and with doing this we hope to attract Senior, Junior, Men and Woman players into playing and training Rugby League through out the summer”.

“We are looking for players at all levels. If you are interested in playing this fast and extremely exciting sport please contact them by emailing them  on info@NorthHertsCrusaders.com or via the contact form on our website by clicking HERE ” or going to www.NorthHertsCrusaders.com

Indian Army Red Win All India South Asia Rugby Tournament, 2011

Rugby is the fastest growing sport in India today. The All India south asia rugby tournament is a testament to this fact. The tournament consistes of the Division-1 teams from across India who will do battle. The participating teams were Army Red (Western Zone), Army Green (Western Zone), Tamil Nadu Police (Tamil Nadu), Delhi Hurricanes (New Delhi), Jungle Crows (Kolkata), CCFC (Calcutta Cricket & Football Club), Bombay Gymkhana, Sergeant’s Institute (Kolkata), Pune Rugby Team (Pune) and KISS Rugby Team (Orissa).

After 6 days of rugby at the tournament it was the final day in the All India South Asia Rugby Tournament, 2011. The two finalists; Army Red, the team that has won this championship on the last 4 occasions and the hosts, Bombay Gymkhanna were evenly matched, and the game promised to be one full of passion, commitment and grit.

As the game kicked off, the first 15 minutes were as close as ever, with both teams battling hard for possession around the half way mark. Army Red were the first team on the score sheet when Pushpendu Das scored from a penalty kick after a Bombay Gym player infringed on a ruck. After the restart Bombay Gym put pressure on the Army defence but came up short, and after a few consecutive infingments once again found themselves in their 22 meter zone. The Army set up a maul from a line out and the Army Red Hooker, Hemant Kumar scored off the rolling maul. Pushpendu Das failed to convert the conversion kick and Army Red went into half time 8-0 up.

When the teams came out at half time, the first 10 minutes were very similar to the corresponding minutes of the first half, with both teams fighting for possession at and around the halfway mark. After a break by the army back line, which was broken up by a good tackle by a Bombay Gym winger, Army found themselves on the Bombay Gym’s 5 meter line. A strong Army scrum put Bombay Gym on the backfoot and Scrum half Sujai lama broke through the gap in the defence to score the Army’s second try right under the posts which was easily converted by Pushpendu Das. Bombay Gym then went all out to pull back some points, and as a result saw captain Nasser Hussain and flanker Anwar Sheik yellow carded for infringements in the ruck.

Bombay Gym were unable to comeback and the game ended, 15-0 to Army A who were crowned champions of the All India and South Asia Rugby tournament for the 5th consecutive time.

Romania in the rugby world cup

The world cup is well underway and apart from Ireland beating Australia there has been no real upsets and even Ireland beating Australia is not a huge upset as Ireland can beat anyone on their day. However this year has seen some of the minnows give a good account of themselves and have given tier 1 countries tough games which turned out to be rather close.

These teams are no longer the pushovers they used to be when cricket scores were a comman occurrence. We have been some very close matches for example Canada beating Tonga and Romania leading Scotland until the final quarter. 

I firmly believe that for the tier 2 nations playing in the world cup are generally playing better than in previous years and are obviously getting better with the more matches they play. It seems a shame that these countries walk away with nothing to show for there efforts after the group stages.

I think that the minnows flourish in playing against better teams in a Rugby World Cup tournament and will get better the more matches they play. I propose that teams that go out of the group stages should then enter the plate competition in a format similar to the Sevens World Series. Do you think this is a good idea or one that is not workable?

Also what could be done to make the tier 2 countries more competitive on the world stage? The world cup will in my opinion be won by any one of 4 teams as is always the case. I cannot see that changing unless fully professional leagues are established in these tier 2 countries, perhaps the IRB should be doing more?

Inauguration of Hurricanes Rugby Academy on 31st July, 2011

On the behalf of Delhi Hurricanes Rugby Football club, I invite you for the Inauguration of Hurricanes Rugby Academy on 31st July 2011. I sincerely believe that you can make difference to this event I sincerely request you to attend this event & make it huge.

Join Delhi Hurricanes facebook page by clicking here.

Southwark Rugby Club & the Lancers

Looking back it was a strange decision to start playing rugby after 15 years of inactivity but I can honestly say that I have loved every minute of playing again over the past 4 years, I only wish that I had continued to play whilst I was at school. The catalyst to strapping on my boots had been the fact that as a business we wanted to sponsor a rugby team but had no real allegiance to anyone in particular. I decided to watch a local match and immediately knew that I would love to get involved with rugby again.

Not content with just wanting to play again I decided that the team we would sponsor would be one of our own creation. To this day I really cannot accurately describe how or why this decision was made but the club has just finished it’s 3rd full season.

Having contacted the RFU and asked for advice on setting up a club they pointed me in the direction of a junior team in inner city London who had been running for 5 years but had no senior team for the children to progress to. I met Vernon Neve-Dunn (founder of the Southwark Tigers www.southwarktigers.org) in the unfamiliar surroundings of Burgess Park which is situated just off the Old Kent Road and a million miles away from the leafy surroundings that you would normally associate with rugby. His brilliant vision had been to create a club for children who would otherwise never have come into contact with a rugby ball.

November 2007 saw the very beginnings of the Southwark Lancers, 4 friends throwing around a rugby ball on a cold Saturday morning in Burgess Park, nothing at all inspirational but a start. Friends of friends started to join and some replies to adverts meant that we had a motley crew of players ready for our first season playing in the Kent Metropolitan Merit Leagues. In fact we had managed to put together a useful team, many of whom had been out of the game for a number of years and had been keen to get back into the game. Our attractiveness was our central London location that can be reached in 10 minutes from Elephant & Castle tube.

We were pipped to top spot by Beckenham in our first season but managed to get promotion. At the beginning of our second season we had enough players for two teams, we were also approached by Niall O’Doherty who wanted to get involved with the club and who became our full time coach. We saw an immediate return and the 09/10 season saw us go undefeated and gain promotion mid way through the season.

Season 10/11 witnessed the club entering the proper national league structure and taking their place in Kent 2. We finally started to find our feet after the first couple of matches and strung some good results together ultimately finishing in 4th position.

This coming campaign will see us pressing for promotion but also looking to get our club structure in place. We rent our pitch from the council and at the moment we train once a week, the club has no club house (the excellent local pub is more than sufficient) and manages to field 3 full teams. I have been utterly shocked by the great success of the club and we hope to improve each year. It is a harsh reality that at grass roots level, participation is down and many clubs are folding so I continue to hope that Southwark Rugby Club will continue to buck the trend.

Whether you want to play or not Southwark Rugby Club are always looking for new players and social members. If you want to join a vibrant, friendly and welcoming club in Southwark please contact:

Chris Callaway on 07740419539

Email: info@southwark-lancers.co.uk

website: www.southwarkrugby.co.uk

Delhi Hurricanes rugby club normally train twice a week on Thursdays & Sundays.  For the confirmation of the time, u can call the following people.
Vicky  – 9818440814
Pulkit  – 9873786001

Also for general information regarding the club and sponsorship opportunities or just ways to get involved with the fastest growing sport in india then contact the person below.

President: Mr. Kuldeep Singh Bist (Kally)

Contact Number: 9999353722
Email ID: kallylomu@hotmail.com

You can join their facebook group also on the following link………

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32106771274

http://www.freewebs.com/delhihurricanes/

During my time In Berlin working I made good friends with an Irish lad from Dublin, who I spent a lot of time with as we were both new to the city. So the clock hit 11.00am and I could go no longer to wait for my morning cup of tea and most importantly breakfast. A quick text to Ian (my new Irish Mate) and I was off on the U-Bahn to meet him at Charlottenberg which incidentally was the capital of West Berlin before unification of East and West Germany.

The plan was to get breakfast and make our way over to watch some Rugby which was not too far from here. We took a walk and ruled out all the possibilities for brunch until we passed an Irish Pub called the Irish Harp In Charlottenberg. We decided to go here as my Friend Ian felt really at home in these places. I ordered a Guinness and asked for the menu.  I was feeling adventurous and decided on a “Irish Breakfast, you can imagine my disappointment when it arrived. Now don’t get me wrong but Sausage, egg, bacon, beans and toast and English tea is pretty much the same as an English breakfast. Irish or English it was a great breakfast and I learned the Irish have the same breakfast as the English therefore it was a Irish/English Breakfast.

After downing two pints of Guinness we decided it was time to leave for the Game. A game between Berlin second team and Hamburg first team.

We arrived at the game on time. There was quite a crown for a second team game I thought and especially for Germany. However the standard of rugby was pretty good and on show were mostly German players however there were a number of British players playing for both teams along with a few Samoans and New Zealanders. The Game was won by Berliner rugby club but the outstanding player on the field that day was the fly half for Hamburg who we later found out was a student on some sort of exchange program from Northern Ireland.

After the game we were invited to have a beer but we declined and headed back to the Irish harp for more beer and food. I now noticed by a poster on the wall of the Berliner Rugby team and later learned that the Irish Harp are in fact sponsors of Berliner Rugby Club. And this is their main watering hole and thus we drank a few more Guinness’s had a chat with a few of the rugby boys who happened to be New Zealanders and off we went. The rest of the night was a blur so can’t report on that.

All in all a rather different rugby day for me but enjoyable and am glad that I can enjoy rugby wherever I go regardless of the standard of rugby it’s just a case of digging around and finding what’s out there are hoping there is a fixture you can attend.

That’s it now for Germany, my 2 months here are done and now back to Rugby in England and looking forward to the Summer touch rugby tournament at Letchworth Rugby Club and Looking forward to Helping out at Little Ruggers a sports development club for children aged 2- 6 years.

As you may have gathered I am now back working in Germany however this time I am in the exciting city of Berlin. After doing a little research I was shocked to find out that there are in fact six rugby clubs in Berlin. I will be giving an overview of the rugby scene here in another post. The plan the coming weekend will be to find a rugby match and pitch up drink German beer and get chatting to as many people as I can and learn more about the people the club and the general rugby scene and hopefully have a decent night out with new friends. I was looking for a game from the highest league in Berlin who play in the Bundesliga.

In Germany because of the winter break, there has been no rugby until last week  and that was the weekend I went home to watch my rugby club play and defeat our local rivals but that’s another post. In terms of German rugby all the traditionally strong clubs from across Germany are represented in the current Budgesliga league table as shown below.

Bundesliga 2010/11

As you can see there are two Berlin Clubs in the German Bundesliga and are currently place 6 and 7, the first being Berliner Rugby Club and the Other being RK 03 Berlin. You may have read my post about Rugby in Germany in which I gave a breakdown of rugby in Germany and also a report on the games I watched namely being München RFC vs RC Luxemburg and Stuttgarter RC vs TSV Victoria Linden who both play in the 2nd tier of German Rugby and I said it was possibly equivalent to either level 7 or 6 in the English league system.

I am now told that the Bundesliga is probably equivalent to Level 5 in English rugby I have yet to see if this is the case. Anyway onto this weekend I am going to go and watch a game between Berliner RC II vs Hamburger RC. What seems to be quite common is that the second teams of these clubs often play in the same league structure, (Whats happens if the second team gets promoted also?). Berliner RC first team plays in the highest league and their second team players in the second tier. You may be thinking why is he going to watch the second team, well that’s because all the other teams seem to be playing away this weekend.

Heres what the league looks like its the Bundesliga North, if you remember Munich, Stuttgart and Luxembourg all play in the Budgesliga South. Please pop back and see how I get on, who knows if I take my boots along I might get a game.

Bundesliga Nord 2010/11

As a start join O2 Rugby Reunion this summer and make the comeback to end all comebacks. It’s time to put the old team back together and get back out there. Each event has food, drink, competitions, prizes and England players present.

Along with former England player Mike Catt, Rob Andrew, one of the North East’s favourite rugby sons, is backing Newcastle as the perfect venue for this weekend’s launch of the O2 Rugby Reunion campaign, a nationwide initiative supported by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to encourage players that have drifted away from rugby to reconnect with the game and their friends.

For more details and to get involved, check out the Rugby Reunion application on Facebook.

“The North East has a great reputation for welcoming visitors and providing them with a tremendous social environment and that should tie in perfectly with the O2 Rugby Reunion theme.” says the former Newcastle Falcons fly-half and Director of Rugby who is now England’s Elite Rugby Director.

“I think the O2 and RFU efforts to keep people in touch and involved in the game is a really good idea and the launch of the programme at Ryton RFC on the outskirts of Newcastle is an ideal choice.

“When any of us look back on our careers, memories of the early days and the characters we played with always remain vivid and precious. Ironically, while the 16/24 age group which this project caters for is probably the most vulnerable, it is also the period in which RU players get most out of the game and the friendships it generates.

Reunite old rugby friends

“The touch rugby festivals in the O2 Rugby Reunion programme offer a perfect opportunity for schoolmates to rekindle the rugby spark and the use of facebook as a means of pulling teams together is a smart piece of thinking.

“I’m sure Newcastle, the capital of fun and social interaction for a while now, will ensure that the O2 Rugby Reunion series will get away to a great start.”

Teams have been invited to take part in one or more of a series of touch rugby events across the UK, culminating in a finale event, ‘The Big one’ in London on September 12, but more importantly, the project is aimed at bringing together players and pals who has drifted apart.

Aimed at reigniting players’ passion for rugby, O2 Rugby Reunion not only uses facebook to reconnect players with their old teams, but also offers an enrollment on the day option for teams who want to turn up and play.

A captain can register a team and interest in a specific touch rugby event, send invites to friends and confirm attendance at the event(s) once a minimum of six team members have been recruited. Teams can then opt to take part in either the ‘fun’ or ‘competitive’ category for their local event.

The programme is aimed at the 16/24 age group, where, because of further education and employment issues, it is easy for players to become detached and lose contact with the game and their former teammates.

The RFU has an O2 Pathfinder scheme in place which seeks to provide an aftercare and tracking mechanism once players move from the clubs and schools where they learned the game and O2 Rugby Reunion offers a chance for friends to get together again and have a run out.

Registration on Saturday opens at 10.00am, with the tournament getting underway after a team briefing scheduled for 11.00am. In keeping with the mood of the event, efforts will be made to accommodate all teams and individuals who share in the spirit of the O2 Rugby Reunion, even if their arrival is delayed.

And if Newcastle is out of your parish, why not get the ball rolling now and enter one of the remaining regional events. They are:

London, Old Deer Park – Saturday 31st July
Bristol, Portway Centre – Saturday 7th August
Manchester, Broughton Park RFC – Saturday 14th August
Coventry, Coundon Hall Park – Saturday 21st August
Dorset, Oakmedians RFC – Sunday 29th August
To register a team via facebook simply search online for ‘O2 Rugby Reunion’ – and start getting in touch with your rugby mates from yesteryear.

For further information on the Newcastle event please contact:
Tom Wilkinson on 07894 489096
Dave Reed on 07736 517728