Meet GBWRs March 2024 Club of the Month, Dragons Wheelchair Rugby.
The club are another of the newer additions to the GBWR family and are affiliated to Dragon’s Rugby, one of the four rugby regions owned by the Welsh Rugby Union. Dragons train in Pontypool, and have grown steadily since their first training sessions in February 2019. The club pride themselves on providing physical exercise opportunities, support with emotional wellbeing and socialising opportunities to individuals with physical disabilities and their families.
Earlier this month the club were part of an ‘insport’ event organised by Disability Sport Wales which aims to support the physical activity, sport, and leisure sectors delivering inclusively of disabled people. As part of the programme a series of events are held throughout Wales which provide opportunities to sample sports that are available for people with disabilities. Dragons Wheelchair Rugby have supported a number of these events with the latest held at Ebbw Vale on Saturday, 9 March 2024. Apart from wheelchair rugby, other sports showcased included wheelchair rugby league, boccia, table tennis, and golf.
Around a dozen youngsters sampled wheelchair rugby whilst attending the event with the club commenting:
Amusingly the ones most reluctant to get in a chair were often the most difficult to prise out, and then they came back for another go. Information about our youth sessions on Thursdays were provided to the parents so it will be interesting to see if we get more people along to training. Whatever the outcome, the smiles on the faces made it all very worthwhile.
GBWR are confident that participation within these sessions will be positive to the recruitment of new participants and wish the Dragons every success in the future. We would like to offer our congratulations to the club and hope you can keep up the good community work and involvement with future insport events.
