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The Army Rugby Union hosted the Corps season’s traditional curtain raiser in Aldershot last week (September 15th), and as well as being happy to see representative rugby back with a bang, Director of Community Rugby Maj Marc Wilding says that the sport is undergoing a resurgence of interest, too.

The Corps festival, which saw the AGC win the Women’s Sevens and the RLC, Infantry and Int Corps win the Men’s League 1, 2 and 3 XVs tournaments respectively, brought hundreds of players from across the country to the home of Army Rugby to lay down a marker before the Corps season starts in earnest at the end of September.

As well as sitting back to take in the matches, Maj Wilding has been enjoying seeing Units and Corps embrace the return of rugby. Not just that, but the pandemic, for all its disruption, has given Army Community Rugby the opportunity to re-think and adapt its proposition to utilise the latest adaptive laws to its advantage.

“Playing-wise I believe we’ve seen buy-in from Units and Corps,” he says. “We’ve trickled a few Unit games in over the summer, but interest-wise we’ve very much been in a good place. The Sevens went really well, we managed to get games played under adaptive laws before summer leave, and at the Corps festival we had hundreds of rugby players playing at a high level, so it’s really positive.

The Unit 7s Finals took place in July under adaptive laws.

Image © Alligin Photography, Scrumpix

“One of the best opportunities coming out of the pandemic with the adaptive laws is we’ve realised that we don’t have to play 15-a-side traditional rugby. For example, if we don’t have a traditional front row we can play adaptive laws and lean on in the scrum with no pushing or have a free kick.

“If we can bring more people to the game first we can then look to develop them to be technically safe so that we can have proper scrums in the future. That’s the nice challenge for us to have, rather than scrambling around trying to find enough players.”

As well as Army teams facing each other before and after the summer break, they have also been engaging with local civilian teams, too, and Maj Wilding is hoping that this continues into the new season, especially in the women’s game.

“The Griffins in Andover went out and played two or three teams in their local community and others have done something similar,” he says. “The good thing post-pandemic is that civilian clubs are also seeing the value in it.

“I want to carry that forward with our own [women’s] Super Series, so where we’ve got somewhere like Abingdon, who only have Lyneham in Wiltshire relatively close to them, we’ll look for all of those local teams in Oxfordshire down to Wiltshire who have ladies sections to have matches and give all of them regular rugby.”

Action from the Women’s 7s competition at the recent Corps Festival

Image © Alligin Photography, Scrumpix

As far as the Corps festival itself was concerned, Maj Wilding adds that the day was a crucial shake-down for the teams before they head into the league season.

“Corps rugby is our first level of representative rugby,” he says, “and Corps coaches only see their players for very short periods before the season starts in earnest. And for this season, where we’ve brought in structured promotion and relegation, it’s all the more important to hit the ground running when the season starts in earnest at the end of September.”

And with the AGC and Gunners having reached the Women’s Sevens final, Maj Wilding is hoping that this is a portent of a competitive full competition.

“RLC have dominated women’s rugby over the last three or four years, so having the AGC and the Gunners in the final shows that when you invest in it you’ll reap dividends,” he comments. “Around three years ago the Gunner team was driven really well by a smaller command team who then moved on, and Gunner rugby dropped off a little bit. So it’s great to see them back. Maj Euan Murray is driving women’s rugby and there’s a real opportunity for Gunner rugby to progress now that there are so many Units in Larkhill.”

The 2021/22 Corps Championship starts on Wednesday, September 29th. CLICK HERE to see all the fixtures!

Words © New Dogs, Old Tricks, Header and Featured Images © Alligin Photography, Scrumpix

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