Thanks to the guys at Oban yesterday, and the update from Alan about the work they're doing to spread the rugby message across not only the Oban community but also a bit further afield across Argyll & Bute.
In addition to their impressive 1st xv start to the season, Oban are also fielding a successful womens teams as well as plenty of work being done with the youth. Their Under 18 won away at Marr in the T4 Conference (that bit of youth rugby you probably don't actually know about) whilst during the week South Argyll Schools welcomed Lenzie Academy for a game in the schools Under 16 Plate - nice journey for Lenzie, but they weren't the only ones with travel logistics to overcome as the home team also had to arrange travel from the islands as well as overnight accommodation for some of their boys as the team covered amongst others, schools in Islay, Lochgilphead, Tarbet and Campbeltown.
It's great that there's loads of rugby activity happening across our communities and we hope we can help in our own little way by highlighting what's happening.
At the end of the day, as Alex at Hyndland helped to highlight after their "gubbing" this weekend - winning is more than just what the refs scorecard says at the end of a game, or promotions / titles at the end of a season.
"Well we took a Gubbing out at Waysiders/Drumpellier today, but as President of Hyndland I was really proud to see the work that our XV put in today. Our guys have went out and managed to attract 16 new guys to pull on our Clubs Colours and they deserve all the Praise. We got a XV out but we had 22 not available so the future can only look bright. Keep up the Great Work Guys, Really Proud at what you are doing."
Yes, it's nice to win games and titles, but at our level (grassroots, community, regional), winning is also getting games played, it's attracting more players to our games, more volunteers, more referees, more supporters who can help each of our Clubs achieve what we can in our local communities.
What each of us wants to achieve will probably be slightly different as we all have different issues which we need to overcome.
As shown by the number of unfulfilled fixtures we are having, playing numbers is obviously one of those issues (across the mens, womens and youth games), but too few referees looks to be a growing issue, and we're sure there are many more you could tell us about.
So this article is about saying thank you to all the people who make community rugby possible - the players, the coaches and the referees are probably some of the more visible ones but then we also have the kit washers, the tea & food makers, the pitch markers & grass cutters, the Club committee, the selection committees, the championship committees, the folk who take players to hospital, the coaches and volunteers who go round schools to encourage another generation, the youth coaches, the match report writers, the folk who sell raffle tickets and fill in grant forms, and the many many more roles that are filled each week.
If there's something we can do to help you grow our great game, then let us know and if we can, we'll help out (or try to encourage someone else to).
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