KNYSNA RUGBY NEWS – The Titans Women's Rugby Academy (TWRA) was introduced to a new dimension of the game they know and love when they were recently taught the basics of Tag Rugby®.
Held at the Hornlee Sport Grounds on Saturday 24 April, the Tag Rugby® clinic was organised by TWRA who roped in the help of Stuart McConnell, director of the Tag Rugby Association and chairman of the International Tag Federation.
The clinic was held for a few reasons - to teach the ladies of TWRA about the game of Tag Rugby, to equip TWRA with the necessary skills, knowledge and drills to coach tag rugby, and lastly as a means for Tag Rugby SA to scout women players as they are preparing a squad to participate in the 2022 ITF Tag Rugby World Cup to be held in Limerick, Ireland.
During the clinic, the ladies played two games in addition to the various training and drills that they carried out. The first game was to garner an understanding of and teach the players about the rules of Tag Rugby as they went along, while the second was a full-on game with all of the rules in force.
Ruzanne George makes a run with the ball in hand.
The clinic is only the start of what TWRA hopes will be a long and fruitful Tag Rugby programme, which will be headed up by one of the academy's newest members, Ruth Wessels.
Wessels has represented the Tag Boks - SA's national side for the sport - in 2019, and will provide valuable experience and knowledge of the sport. Tag Rugby has become popular over the past year due to the fact that, while contact sports was prohibited, Tag Rugby was not.
Faith Gosling tries to avoid the outstretched arm of Marlene Adams during the session.
"Tag is considered a non-contact sport and allowed players to return to play, while still making use of basic rugby skills such as passing a ball, running lines, creating plays, and keeping players fit and ready for the rugby season to commence," said Wessels.
The premise of Tag Rugby is essentially the same as ordinary rugby, except instead of tackling each other, players wear tags on each hip that their opponents try to remove when they have possession of the ball.
Deone Ruiters is "tackled" by Ruzanne George and Iqlesha Leo, who are trying to remove her tags.
Stuart McConnell, director of Tag Rugby®.
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