Another great sign of the future was the Performance Management Group sitting down this week to select the team to take part in the Prague Tournament in November – see the announcement below. Coaches Tez Shaw and Justin Frishberg gave excellent presentations to the selectors and it was great to hear that there is so much new talent coming through. All of the athletes selected for the tournament are also being considered as potential athletes for the Rio cycle, so there is much for them to play for in Prague as we work with UK Sport to agree our next group of athletes to place on the World Class Performance Programme. This week I also met with the Chief Executive of Harlequins Rugby Club and we are now working together to build a partnership the detail of which will be announced in the near future. With London already working with Saracens and interest from other rugby clubs ( remember I mentioned Woodbridge last week and we are also talking with Leicester through Matt Hampson) there is a real sense of the whole rugby community coming together which has to be good for us as we try to grow and develop our sport. Wheelchair Rugby again got a good mention this week in an interview I gave to the Guardian newspaper and where we got another action photo of Dave Anthony and Aaron Phipps – all good coverage which keeps our sport in the headlights and helps attract new interest.
Team Selected for Prague:
0.5: Muhammad Islam ( Captain); 1.0: Nev Burrell; 1.5: Nick Cummins: Luke Twizell; 2.0: Gavin Walker (Vice Captain); Chris Ryan; 2.5: Ayaz Bhuta; 3.0: Jim Roberts; Paul McDerby; 3.5: Luke White
Congratulations to you all.
David Pond
