This week I have been at the International Rugby Board World Rugby Conference in London where Steve Brown and I presented on the World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge 2015. It was a fantastic conference for us and there is a real interest in our tournament from potential sponsors and broadcasters. The challenge now is to turn that interest into a commitment to play a part in what will be an amazing event for athletes, spectators and our sport, and I am working hard to achieve that. At the end of the Conference the IRB announced its rebranding as ‘World Rugby’ so we wish it the very best as it moves forward and continues to grow the game world wide. It was good to have the support of the IWRF President John Bishop over from the US and our own IWRF Board Member Richard Allcroft there. Planning for WWRC15 goes well and Martyn Salt our Event Director has this week been at the Copperbox getting down to the detail of the venue set up. The IWRF has now appointed John Timms as the Technical Delegate for the tournament and it is good for us to have someone so experienced himself in event management – congratulations John! The next big milestone will be the announcement of the schedule which will be out in early December. Do log on to www.wwrc15.com and make sure you are registered because all news, including the schedule, ticket sales etc will be published there first and will go to those who are registered. Following our recent piece in Front Row, the RFU’s publication, we had over 400 people registering on the site in 24 hours!
It was good to meet up with Rupert Moon at the Conference. Rupert who won 24 caps for Wales at scrum half before retiring in 2001 is one of the driving forces behind Dragons’ partnership with Rygbi Gogledd Cymru – North Wales Rugby – more about that nearer the official launch in December. Tony Stackhouse and Rebecca Daley have done a great job working with Amanda Thomas to bring all of this together and we are now seeing the sort of partnerships with rugby in Wales that we already have with clubs in England.
We are delivering some great wheelchair rugby with youth groups. Lots has been happening in Hertfordshire helped and supported with funding from Saracens and we are also delivering youth sessions at Richmond College where our Harlequins partners came along to take a look at what we are doing. These are great initiatives and are bringing real joy to young people. Our aim is to start to develop some youth teams and we plan to have a youth tournament as part of our WWRC15 community day in the Copperbox in 2015. A big thank you to Luke White who has been helping to coach and organise some of this activity.
As I write this Day 1 of the GBWR Coaches Development event will be starting at De Montfort University in Leicester. This is being delivered by Sports Coach UK and Coachwise and is the result of all the work we have been doing to create a properly accredited coach pathway. Most of our club coaches are attending this and it is an important step towards creating a more professional coaching system which supports the development of the game.
Finally good luck to the Division 2 and 3 teams who start their Super Series season on Saturday. Crash lead Division 1 after the first Super Series weekend with Storm and Tigers in 2nd and 3rd place – there is a long season ahead though!
David Pond
