Ulster Rugby Annual Report

Building on the ‘Sideline Behaviour’ initiative from last season a short video was developed during a girls’ rugby festival in Portadown in February. This highlighted the benefits of good sideline behaviour and empowers the players to play their own game and to learn and develop without being “coached” from the sidelines. Several Clubs ran their own sideline behaviour day during the season. While safeguarding was a major focus for the Spirit of Rugby programme, it was not the only one. The Spirit of Rugby Officer sits on a number of forums including the Safeguarding Children in Sport Strategic Group, Wellbeing in Sport Forum and the NI Sport and Human Rights Forum. She also participated in the IRFU’s Leadership and Mentoring Programme building key skills that will help to effectively support Club volunteers. A Spirit of Rugby Conference took place in the Aviva Stadium in January 2019. All of the delegates who attended from Ulster felt that it was a very interesting and useful event. The theme of the conference was ‘Play Your Part, Let Them Play’, with the aim of helping adults to create and maintain a safe and fun environment which prioritised player welfare, which has been identified as an essential element in the retention of age-grade rugby players. The conference was open to coaches, volunteers, parents and all those working with age-grade players in Clubs and Schools across the four provinces. During the 2018/19 season the Academy team delivered anti-doping workshops to the male representative squads while the Spirit of Rugby Officer concentrated on female representative squads, delivering workshops to the U18 and adult squads in advance of their Inter-pro series. Two anti-doping & concussion workshops were delivered to Schools in October and the first Club ‘Keep Rugby Clean’ workshop was delivered to U14s and U16s in City of Derry RFC. The Ulster Disability Advisory Group (DAG) met four times over the course of 2018/19, discussing a range of topics including the Wooden Spoon Tag Rugby Festival which was hosted so successfully by Ballyclare RFC in June. Carrickfergus RFC has been exploring the possibility of adding a disability section and has been supported and advised by DAG members. Two Disability Inclusion Coaching Courses were held in September & February. Both were very well received by the Clubs and are likely to become seasonal fixtures. In October the Spirit of Rugby Officer attended the Schools Tag Festival organised by Killard School in partnership with Donaghadee RFC. It was a great day for the children participating, all of whom had the chance to see the Six Nations trophies and to have their photographs taken with them. There have been several exciting developments within disability rugby this season including the launch of the Malone Tornadoes on 15th October 2018. This is the first mixed ability rugby team in Ulster and it has been going from strength to strength. The Spirit of Rugby Officer attended the Mixed Ability Rugby workshop in Cork in November along with some of the coaches from the Tornadoes, a very interesting and informative event. Starting in March, the Newforge Taggers entered

a team in the IRFU Spring Tag League for the very first time. The players were keen to try out their skills in a more competitive forum and by all accounts they had a great time. Joined by some of their female coaches in order to make up an eligible playing team, this was the very essence of inclusivity. Following on from last season’s work around the participation of young people in decision making in rugby, the Ulster Rugby Youth Forum was established in November. Having identified a range of issues that were important to them, the forum members have agreed on a piece of work that they hope to have in place early in the 2019/20 season. Discipline This season has seen a marginal increase in red cards issued and dealt with by the Disciplinary Committee. The vast majority of cards were given for striking an opponent with most of those at the lower end of the scale. Sanctions ranged from ‘red card deemed sufficient’ to a twelve week ban. It was pleasing that instances of verbal abuse declined again but two of those cases involved Youth coaches. This is unacceptable and something which Clubs must work harder to eradicate.

Year

Adult

Youth

Total

2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16 2014/15

43 (5) 39 (6) 45(13) 29 (1) 41 (7)

9

52 (5) 51 (9)

12 (3) 10(1)

55 (14) 35 (2) 54 (8)

6 (1)

13 (1)

Figures in brackets are cases of referee abuse

Rugby Development Rugby Development staff are responsible for the development of on-field aspects of the game including growing participation, retaining players in the game and development of coaches and players within our Schools and Clubs. One area of continued growth this season was through the deployment of various rugby participation staff within Schools with a particular focus on us engaging new participants at Secondary School level. This was supported through our network of eighteen Club Community Rugby Officers (CCROs), ten Community Participations Officers (CPOs) and two specific posts in Belfast focusing on increasing participation opportunities amongst females and people with a disability. The posts in Belfast were funded by Belfast City Council with our ten CPOs being supported by Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council, Ards & North Down Borough Council, Causeway, Coast & Glens Borough Council and Newry, Mourne & Down District Council. The opportunity to secure additional funding for development staff is currently being explored. The

14

IRFU ULSTER BRANCH ANNUAL REPORT 2018/19