The South African Rugby Union will celebrate Women’s Day, this weekend, by demonstrating their passion for rugby with two special tournaments featuring a new generation of u.16 and u.18 female players, sponsored by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund.
Teams from six SARU-run Women’s Youth Rugby Training Centres, from across the country, will compete in North and South Sections, with three u.16 and three u.18 teams participating in each tournament.
“We developed the Youth Training Centres earlier this year to grow and develop rugby among young girls and it is fantastic that they are able to celebrate Women’s Day by enjoying the sport we all share a deep passion for,” said SARU CEO Jurie Roux.
“Hopefully this will assist in changing the perception that rugby is male sport and inspire many more young ladies to take up the sport, especially in an era where women’s rugby is becoming a professional sport.
“The South African Rugby Union would also like to take this opportunity to wish all our South African women a happy Women’s Day on Sunday.”
The matches will be held over two days, Saturday, August 8, and Monday, August 10, with the teams each playing in two round-robin matches on the opening day, and the two top teams in each section will contest the final on Monday.
The North Section, which features the Limpopo Blue Bulls, Blue Bulls and Western Province, will be hosted at Hoërskool Warmbad in Bela-Bela, and the South Section, featuring Border, Eastern Province and KwaZulu-Natal, will be held at Hoërskool Grens in East London respectively.
The participating teams have been selected by the coaches at the respective Youth Training Centres and will feature the best young talent in the respective provinces. The tournaments will also allow SARU’s Rugby Department to witness the progress made in women’s rugby within these age groups since the inception of the training centres.
Similarly to the u.16 and u.18 National Girls Weeks, talent scouts will be present with an eye on selecting an elite squad which will be invited to a training camp in October where the players will be introduced to SARU’s high performance structures. The coaches from the Youth Training Centres will work with the players at the camp to improve their skills.
These players will also be exposed to distant coaching to improve their rugby and positional skills, and will have access to gyms and training programmes designed by the Youth Training Centre coaches.
North Section fixtures, Saturday August 8:
09:00 – Blue Bulls u.16 vs Western Province
10:05 – Limpopo Blue Bulls u.18 vs Western Province
11:10 – Western Province u.16 vs Limpopo Blue Bulls
12:15 – Blue Bulls u.18 vs Limpopo Blue Bulls
14:10 – Limpopo Blue Bulls u.16 vs Blue Bulls
15:15 – Western Province u.18 vs Blue Bulls
South Section fixtures, Saturday August 8:
09:00 – Border u.16 vs KwaZulu-Natal
10:05 – Eastern Province u.18 vs KwaZulu-Natal
11:10 – Eastern Province u.16 vs KwaZulu-Natal
12:15 – Eastern Province u.18 vs Border
14:10 – Border u.16 vs Eastern Province
15:15 – KwaZulu-Natal u.18 vs Border
