'Fantastic to see' return of Hartlepool schools' tag rugby contests

After a break enforced by the coronavirus pandemic, “it has been fantastic to see hundreds of children from across the town enjoying participating in inter-school tag rugby”.

Overseen by Hartlepool School Games organiser Kate Robinson, schools firstly took part in the different cluster competitions that are organised in five parts of the town.

The top two teams from each cluster then qualified for the Hartlepool Girls’ Tag Rugby Town Finals and Hartlepool Boys’ Tag Rugby Town Finals.

Following the initial group stages and semi-finals, both the girls’ and the boys’ finals ended up being competed by the same two schools – Clavering Primary School from the north of the town and Fens Primary School from the south of the town – with Clavering triumphing in both finals.

Neil McAvoy, deputy headteacher at Clavering Primary School and Physical Education, School Sport and Physical Activity (PESSPA) programme director, said afterwards: “We all appreciate that children across the world have missed out on so many opportunities because of the pandemic and it has been fantastic to see hundreds of children from across the town enjoying participating in inter-school tag rugby.

"It was brilliant to be able to give 52 Clavering children the opportunity to participate in our cluster competition and cluster festival and then we were very proud to see both our girls’ and boys’ A teams retain our two titles as town champions, despite excellent performances from the likes of the boys and girls from Fens and several other Hartlepool schools at the town finals.”

Clavering’s cluster competition and festival saw hundreds of children playing at Hartlepool RFC’s Mayfield Park and the two town finals also featured hundreds of children playing behind West Hartlepool RFC’s ground on the pitches used by Hartlepool Sixth Form College, which provided the referees for both town finals.

Mr McAvoy added: “Hartlepool is fortunate to have several family-friendly rugby clubs and it would be brilliant to see more children – of all abilities – give rugby a try at our great local clubs.”

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