Tagfest

The Sun Valley Rugby Project brought 426 youngsters from across the West Midlands together to set a new Guinness World Record at this year’s Tag Festival rugby tournament. 40 teams from primary schools in Herefordshire, South Shropshire and East Powys competed in the world’s biggest Tag rugby festival, hosted by Luctonians Sports Club on 25 April 2008.

26 schools entered teams into this year’s tournament which was supported by representatives from Guinness Premiership side, the Worcester Warriors. Friends, family and rugby lovers cheered the youngsters on as they eclipsed the current world record of 242 primary school competitors. The Sun Valley Rugby Project Tag Festival 2008 was wrapped up with an Anglo-Welsh final in which defending champions Kingsland CE School from Leominster, Herefordshire, beat Welsh school Presteigne by 7 tries to 5.

The Sun Valley Rugby Project has been running since England’s victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final, and has introduced primary school pupils from across North Herefordshire and East Powys to the game of rugby during the Easter school term. From January to April each year, participating schools received five one-hour introductory sessions of exciting Tag rugby, which is rounded off by the annual Tag Festival.

Nick Byron, former Australian U21 international and current Sun Valley Rugby Project coach, said: “Tag rugby is a fantastic way to introduce youngsters to the game and the Sun Valley Rugby Project is great for children in Herefordshire to play competitively from a young age. The world record is a fantastic achievement for us and the children had a great time throughout the day.”

Richard Maxfield, Managing Director of Sun Valley Europe, added: “These children are the future of sport in our community and the Luctonians do a fantastic job running the Sun Valley Rugby Project. We are extremely proud to be involved in the Tag Festival, which introduces youngsters to rugby and brings them together socially whilst also improving their health and fitness. The world record is a great success for the rugby project and it was wonderful that the youngsters had a great day of sport, which ended with them being record breakers. The Sun Valley Rugby Project will go from strength to strength and hopefully in the near-future we will see one of the graduates walking out at Twickenham.”

The date of tagfest for this upcoming season is Friday 24th April 2009