Pontefract
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Integration Hugh Gumbs
Challenges
“ The younger players eligible to play for the senior teams are encouraged to train with the senior players to get used to playing with seniors . It also helps training together as knowledge from the senior players can be passed to the colts . The players are encouraged to play with the third and second teams to get used to playing against adults as it can be quite different to playing colts rugby . However as we ’ ve seen this year , with the juniors from last season , if they are good enough to play first team rugby they will get their chance and some of them have thrived this year in their first senior season .”
Community
“ I would say we are a community club ; we are a local side full of players from Pontefract , and I think it shows when we can put out three senior teams , four junior teams , three girls and two mini teams from four people from Pontefract .
The majority of our sponsorship comes from the local businesses in Pontefract and from ex-players who are still around the club . One thing we are wanting to improve next year is more involvement with our sponsors so that they feel a bigger part of the club then they have done recently .
Some of the ex-players and current players are the junior team coaches , so the guys are putting their time back into the club . We have relationships with local schools and colleges in the area with the majority of our juniors and girls coming from these schools . So it ’ s nice to see the work the guys have done in the schools is coming to fruition with them coming down to the club to carry on what they did at school .”
“ Head coach Hugh Gumbs has been influential in making Pontefract RUFC into a community club , he ; has helped change the culture of the club to be a more inclusive environment . Not only has he coached the first team , but he has helped develop the junior section .
He has gone into the schools to help promote both boys and girls rugby in the area and has often helped out in refereeing the fixtures when possible for the junior games . He ’ s spent a lot of time and effort working with us around the club to help promote its values to the wider community and with the expansion of the Junior sections its clear to see its working .”
“ Finding and keeping coaches for the junior team is going to be challenging . The number of teams is growing all the time and getting the coaches for each team is something which we are working on at the moment .
With the growth of the club recently we may struggle with our current clubhouse and changing rooms so that is something which we are hopefully going to address .
Keeping hold of some of the talented players we have may be an issue too , as some of the younger players have some real quality about the way they play ; if we can keep these and keep this current squad together I think playing wise we can get promoted and hold our own in the higher leagues .”
Ambitions
“ The club wants to keep expanding our Junior and girls section to make sure we have an age range for every age and ability in the club . Development of the club house and grounds is a key focus for the club in the next five years , it would be great to modernise the club house and changing rooms as the rugby has improved immensely over the past few years and we could do with facilities which match our ambition .
Our main ambition for Senior rugby is going to be to make sure we are back in Yorkshire NE and hold our position there , with continual growth in the seconds and third team and to keep developing players to progress from junior to senior sides .”
18 Issue 72