Deri
Yvonne Jenkins is a recent club
sponsor of Deri RFC with her
business Draig Plastics. She
recently told Rugby Club Magazine,
“I am a local girl and have always
known about the club and their mini
section. When the club approached
me about sponsorship last year I
was happy to take up the offer.
Unfortunately, I have not had the
chance to take up the invitation to
go along myself but my partner Sean
has and thoroughly enjoyed himself.
It’s great to hear that Deri RFC have
enjoyed such a successful season,
best wishes to everyone for the
future!”
having a successful season and not
enough interest in the team in our small
village to get them back to the club.
I must mention our coach at the time
Anthony (Chunky) Palmer for sticking
with us through this difficult time.
“The following season Chunky was
joined on the coaching staff by Steve
Lewis, a decent scrum half back in the
day, who played for a few top local sides
and also cut his teeth coaching local
rivals Aberbargoed.
“A few of our players who had left
slowly started to come back to the club
due to the efforts of these two coaches
and we started to get a few training and
competing in games. Andrew (Jack)
Stephens then joined the coaching set
up and things started to really take off.
Unfortunately Chunky had to finish due
to his work commitments and also his
involvement with the WRU.
“We had a few youngsters in our
village who were playing youth rugby at
the time (we haven’t had a youth for a
number of years) and knew when these
were old enough to play for us they
would really strengthen the side, which
proved correct this year.
“Fast forward to this season and we
won Division 3 East C, ably captained
by David Isles and Scotty Horton, where
we finished the season only losing one
game. The support we had this year
was tremendous for a small valle y side
and when we travelled to away games it
would often get mentioned by the home
side.
“The social side of the club has gone
from strength to strength as well as the
old saying goes success breeds success.
The committee and myself take great
pleasure in the success on and off the
field this year as it makes all the struggles
of the last few years worth it. We even
managed a cheeky end of season tour to
Magaluf where we played local side El
toro and won 15-14.
“The mood down the club is
absolutely buzzing and we can’t wait
for next season to start where there are
a lot of local derbies in our league. This
season has been fantastic with our plan
now being to take a few weeks off, draw
breath and start planning for the season
to kick off in September.
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