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About 30 students in Grades 6, 7, and 8 received some great exposure to rugby during a boot camp Sunday at Lions Park.
Greg Haydu of the Nelson Grizzlies Rugby Society says it’s thanks to a grant from 2010 LegaciesNow to buy equipment and create a youth rugby development program.
For the last two weeks, volunteer coaches have been at Trafalgar school, introducing the game to Grade 8 students as part of their PE curriculum. It culminated this weekend with the camp, which included drills and scrimmages.
“Hopefully we’re starting a legacy,” Haydu says. “The idea is we’ll be back at Trafalgar next year offering the program again, or expanding it. Maybe it’s not just the [Grade] 8s, but the 7s and 8s.”
Haydu says they targeted those grades because L.V. Rogers has an excellent rugby program — and some of those older students came out to help with the camp.
“This is really a fledgling sport,” Haydu says. “It’s starting out. We’re not like soccer or hockey. We don’t have that kind of infrastructure. We’re hoping as the sport grows and the demand increases, maybe we can have a youth league. Right now everything’s within the schools.”
He adds they are starting small with just kids in Nelson, but the society’s mandate is to cover a larger area.
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