THE FIRST of three day-long women’s ‘Super Sunday’ touch rugby tournaments – organised by the UK’s largest all-women touch league which is based in the Midlands – will be staged on Sunday, June 21 at Old Laurentians Rugby Club in Rugby.
The event is being organised by the Midlands Ladies Touch League (MLTL) and any female aged 13 and upwards can join one of the teams taking part in and have a go at this fast and exciting non-contact sport, which involves passing and running with a rugby ball to score tries. Play will start at 11am and finish around 5pm.
Fizz Bewley, administrator for the MLTL, says touch rugby is one of the fastest growing sports for women in the Midlands.
“Because it is non-contact, anyone can play, whole families in mixed or single-sex events and it is a brilliant way to get fit, make friends and have a lot of fun,” she said.
“The MLTL is an open league and new teams can enter at any time in the season and women of all ages can find a club near them and have a go.”
The MLTL has grown massively in the last year and 16 women’s teams and nearly 200 women now play regularly, which means the league, from this season, has been divided into two regions – North East and South West.
Each of the regions hosts six regional league tournaments in the 2015 touch season – which runs from March to November – to find their regional champion.
The three, all-team ‘Super Sunday’ tournaments – two in the summer and a final in the autumn – will decide the overall MLTL winners.
The 16, all-women Midlands RFC teams that will compete at the first Super Sunday on June 21 are: Pershore, Redditch, Bredon (Worcestershire); Bromyard, Luctonians, Greyhound, Ross (Herefordshire); Berry Hill (Gloucestershire); Stratford, Wellesbourne, Old Laurentians, Berkswell & Balsall, Rugby Saint Andrew’s, Newbold (Warwickshire); Camp Hill (Solihull); and Cannock (Staffordshire).
The MLTL – which is affiliated to the England Touch Association – organises tournaments at all of these clubs, which play to Federation of International Touch (FIT) rules, with trained referees and coaches.