State schools key to growth of Scottish rugby

A KEY growth area in Scottish rugby has been in the first few years of secondary school with two-thirds of Scotland's state schools reported to be actively promoting rugby in a meaningful way.

It has been a long campaign to return rugby to schools since its demise in the 1980s and its shape varies from school-local club hybrids, to solely club set-ups and solely schools systems, and also across different periods in the year. However, the SRU acknowledged yesterday that "the steady recovery of extracurricular state school rugby" was a major factor in the sport's rising playing numbers.

Graham Shiel, the former Scotland centre and currently one of the SRU's regional academy coaches, is an example of a rugby-loving parent who is helping in the state school sector. His son Charlie started at Royal High last year and Shiel went along to offer help as a coach.

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Shiel said: "The school has three teachers who take rugby – a PE teacher, a maths teacher and history teacher – and two or three parents, and I volunteered to help with S1s. We started up last August and have run through to May with two rugby sessions a week and a game every weekend, and if there's not a game we have a coaching session. We have had about 33 boys involved, 27 on a regular basis. It has been a great success; a good season of introducing kids to rugby every week and now feeding into the rest of the years at the school."

Elsewhere, Tynecastle High School near Murrayfield was an almost rugby-free zone until two years ago, but the combination of Stuart Dennis, the Murrayfield Wanderers development officer, PE teacher Bruce Aitchison and Scottish Widows Bank "rugby champion" James Dickie, the school now has regular rugby and supplies 20 boys and girls to the Murrayfield Wanderers club.

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