Start of 2020 season approaches

After moving out of lockdown over two months and now progressing towards actually being able to play, everyone involved in St. Bede's rugby is excited about the prospect of games being just around the corner. The College is very grateful to all those people who, in one way or another, have contributed to keeping boys' enthusiasm levels up in these challenging times. The same applies to all of the coaches, managers, committee members, and of course parents who will help the boys enjoy the season ahead. Thank you for your commitment.

Rugby Committee Chairman Ed Sparrow comments: "Under Covid 19 at Level 2, there have been 3 stages for rugby. We’ve completed the first (getting ready to train) and are now into the second phase (getting ready to play). The third phase is playing! We will continue to work with all the necessary authorities and the key message has and will be “Play it Safe”. All of this will be based around meeting the Government and School guidelines on things such as mass gatherings, crowd control, contact tracing, physical distancing, hygiene of participants and facilities. So all in all - that means we are currently on track for a competition start on 20th June across the grades."

Provisional squads are now training with a view to final selection occurring based on coaches discussing the relative merits of players as seen in training, game-like scenarios and one pre-season game. Details are now being discussed for games against Christchurch BHS on Saturday 13 June (juniors away and seniors at home) before the competition commences on 20 June once the CRFU gives the go ahead to proceed. Our under-weight age grade teams (U58kgs and U63kgs) will be selected to the maximum extent possible to create two similar strength teams in each of the two grades. 

We look forward to seeing everyone on the sidelines again once we get through to Level 1.