FOLLOWING on from the rejection of their Awards For All grant application to support a Community Tag Rugby programme in the primary schools of the Malvern Hills district, the Malvern RFC Youth Development Section has decided to push on with the project for the new season regardless of possible funding difficulties.

From the end of September, the volunteer coaches from the Malvern RFC youth section will be busy promoting Tag Rugby to the young people of the districts 32 rural and urban primary schools through special "taster" sessions.

In April and May 2003, all of the district's primary school Tag Rugby teams will be encouraged to join an after-school mini-league competition based at three newly formed regional Tag Rugby centres to be set-up and initially administered by Malvern RFC in the urban district of Malvern and the rural centres of Martley and Upton-upon-Severn.

In June 2003 the district's tag-rugby playing schools will gather at Malvern RFC for a tag-rugby extravaganza based upon the IRB World Sevens Competition with the festival winners going on to represent the Malvern Hills district in the Worcestershire Youth Games in July 2003.

Commenting on the project, Gary Tolley, the chairman of youth rugby at Malvern RFC said: "The medium-term ambition of the Malvern RFC Youth Development Section to ensure that the young people of the Malvern Hills district are given the chance to be involved in sport and competition and we believe that tag rugby offers this opportunity.

"Despite the limited funding and work commitments of our volunteer coaches, we have successfully helped half of the district's primary schools to take up tag rugby, with many of these becoming self-sustaining in terms of coaching and resources by the end of the last academic year.

"We hope the introduction of the three regional tag-rugby centres at Malvern, Martley and Upton-upon-Severn, that will eventually be independently managed by the local communities and schools, will produce more coaches, more administrators and more opportunities for young people to enjoy sport and competition close to their homes."

Malvern RFC Youth Development Section will be re-submitting an application for a new Awards For All grant to help fund the Malvern Hills District Community Tag Rugby programme in September 2002.