South Canterbury Rugby Football Union eNewsletter

Welcome this edition of our fortnightly newsletter

Easter is nearly upon us which means its only about weeks until the senior club season kicks off.

On Wednesday night we held our Placemakers Senior Club Rugby Launch at our local store. Brendan Leary and his team hosted players, coaches, managers , referees , supporter club members and club officials from members of all our clubs.

Mentioning Brendan and like so many of our wonderful sponsors, we sincerely thank him for assisting us in providing what we do for our senior competition – Placemakers have been the major sponsor for senior club for the past 6 years but their support of SC Rugby dates back many years. Like all our sponsors please where possible make them the top of your shopping lists when looking for products or services.

Placemakers has stores in Timaru, Oamaru and Twizel.

Thank you to those that attended – it certainly was very pleasing to see so many of us there and just reinforces the great connection that exists between us all. It was great to not only have representation from our male players but to see so many of our girls in attendance and we are all excited to see and know that they have a local club round robin series this year along with then combining with Mid-Canterbury women’s teams to games against them as well.

We wish all teams a successful season ahead.

Thank you to all our clubs that are busy getting ready for the season ahead – Club Musters and Rego’s are well underway, and we look forward to seeing on the fields soon our JAB, Teenage and our girls.

Fraser Park is coming along nicely; the number 1 field is currently being installed – it has been levelled and this week they were installing the pipes for the irrigation system.

As stated earlier we are planning to have a grand opening on the 20th of July along with Senior Club Finals.

Watch this space for further information regarding the opening.

On behalf of the Board and Team here at South Canterbury Rugby we wish you all a safe and Happy Easter.

Game Development - Caro@scrfu.co.nz

Diversity and Inclusion

We had our first Diversity and Inclusion meeting this week with a great turn out from our committee.

This group helps to give us an insight to how Rugby in South Canterbury is seen through the lense of diverse cultures and with the growth in the female game this season to ensure females have a positive experience.

We have an opportunity to really showcase our region with the opening of Fraser Park on the 20th of July.

Club Connect

We enjoyed our Club Connect with the Celtic Rugby community. A chance for us to connect face to face and an opportunity to ensure the club is aware of the support we at SC Rugby have from App use, grant application, Safe Spaces and Fraser Park update.

Tim and Caro would also like to thank Mackenzie Rugby Club for the invite to their committee meeting. Always great to see how strong our communities are and connect with our hard-working volunteers.

If your Club would like to host a Club Connect please contact caro@scrfu.co.nz to book in a date.

Teenage Team Numbers

Teenage Rugby has a strong representation this year with record team entries.

Both the boys and girls team entries have increased from last year which is exciting for our region.

Teams are busy training and getting ready or term two kick off, if your teenager wants to play rugby and has not a team to play in, please reach out to caro@scrfu.co.nz and we can help connect them with a team.

Teenage Tackle Tens

Reminder to get your entries in: Click here to Enter

School Visits

Danielle has been busy working with Primary Schools in our region running Love Rugby Programmes.

She has been busy working at Highfield School where they have been training towards a Rippa day next Thursday the 28th of March.

Please reach out to Danielle if your school would be interested in some fun rugby sessions.

Holiday Programme

Reminder, we have our holiday programme running during the April holidays.

Dates and registrations will be out next week. This is open to any JAB child who is registered with a club. We encourage any child who wants to come along and “have a go” to also join in.

Schools / Girls Rugby Danielle scrugby@scrfu.co.nz

Continuing to work closely with the schools around South Canterbury, over the past two weeks we have run rippa ‘love rugby’ sessions with 588 students around Gleniti, Highfield, Makikihi and St Joseph’s Fairlie. Highfield have been preparing for their own school rippa rugby day next Thursday.

Schools have been starting to train for our rippa day at Ashbury Park on May 15th for our year 5/6 and our newly added grade of year 7/8.

We have train to play afternoons coming up on April 29th, May 6th and May 13th down at Old Boys for our Year 5,6,7,8 girls who want to have a run around and have a go at rugby with the chance to join a team as well. Working with our clubs to have a delegate from each down on the 29th representing their club.

We have also been working with our secondary schools to deliver our ‘thrive with five’ game, having booked Craighead and Timaru Girls High School to deliver during physical education lessons to align rugby with the New Zealand Curriculum.

Operations Department jason@scrfu.co.nz

Our Season is just around the corner , so we are asking everyone to get registered as soon as they can , Juniors / Teenagers / Boys & Girls / Senior Men & Women , if you haven't had a reminder to register for this season Click Here for all our Club ( Player / coach / referee / admins)

If you are new to our district , firstly welcome to South Canterbury, If you are planning playing rugby - Please make sure you have completed your Inbound World Rugby Clearance Click Here for more info - If you have played overseas, please make sure you have this sorted .

This year we have set up a Managers WhatsApp group , so we can keep intouch with our Senior Grade managers around everything admin ( Regos/ team lists/ judicial info / milestones) if you are a senior grade manager and you are not in this group please email jason@scrfu.co.nz

Senior Rugby Kiks off April 6th

JAB ( Junior) & Teenage Rugby Kicks off May 4th