Tag Rugby Festival - Settle...
On Wednesday 13th June, an excited group of girls travelled to Settle for a Tag Rugby Festival. It was a warm afternoon at North Ribblesdale Rugby Club and Gisburn School had two teams entered. The festival was organised and run to encourage girls to get into playing rugby and to raise the awareness of the sport. Prior to the event, the girls had taken part in training sessions at lunch time and had quickly developed their skills - ready for some matches!
The first game was one of the most exciting games of rugby, as Gisburn A played against Gisburn B. Not to any surprise, neither team took it easy and all the girls involved played at a furious pace. The first try was awarded to Gisburn B: 'G' touched the ball down after a fantastic set of plays by the whole team, capped off with sensational support play. Unfortunately, Gisburn B couldn’t hold on to the lead and multiple tries came in quick succession for the A team as they just clinched victory.
The festival continued with every team playing against each other in 10 minute matches, which took its toll on all of the players in later games. Luckily, due to the team spirit and popularity of the sport, Gisburn had a healthy squad of twenty players and with only seven allowed on the pitch across two teams, it meant we could rotate the girls regularly to keep them fresh. This was also lucky for Kildwick as their team was hit by injury; kindly, some of our girls offered to step in and play for their team. In doing so, they were very effective, often helping with the organisation of their team, in particular 'M', who stepped in multiple times!
All the girls were amazing and played the game just how it should be with competitive spirit and a smile on their face! At the end of the event, they all received a goody bag and a huge round of applause. Before leaving, the teacher responsible for Kildwick came over to thank the girls for helping their team and said that they were amongst the kindest group of girls she had come across. Looking at the whole event and the day itself, I was immensely proud of the girls: true role models to Gisburn Primary School.
Thank you to the mass of parents who travelled to Settle to support the children and for your help with transporting the team. Hopefully this event will run again next year!