Go Play Rugby Update

The Rugby World Cup is now in full swing and the Go Play Rugby campaign enters a new and vital phase. We have a once in a generation opportunity to ensure the long term health of the community game.  The effort and enthusiasm from everyone so far is evident in the number of people using the postcode search – well other 13,000 now.  And of course, those people enquiring don’t count for a much without the sterling work going on at your clubs to recruit players and record them on RugbyFirst !

Hopefully everyone has had some fun whilst recruiting as well!

If you have any shining examples of how you have grown the game, or have any questions, suggestions or requests please email us at goplayrugby@therfu.com

Pass it on

With Universities and colleges already back we have a great opportunity for clubs and student teams to work together better than ever before and recruit more players.  Fresher’s Weeks will be happening up and down the country.  Get involved and develop a real partnership – clubs can offer facilities and coaching as well as playing opportunities.

To help spread the Go Play Rugby message, we are attempting to join our England stars and the public together by creating the world’s longest Rugby passing sequence. Johnny Wilkinson launched the online move for us on the student website and rugby fans are invited to join him and his England team-mates in the chain.

The concept is a simple one. You visit the website and upload video of you or a friend receiving a rugby ball from the right and passing it to the left.

You are emailed when it goes live on the site and could appear next to one of your mates - or passing the ball to the likes of Wilkinson, Phil Vickery or Jason Robinson. There's a prize of two tickets for a game at Twickenham in the 2008 RBS 6 Nations for the most inventive catch and pass!

So please pass on the message and start adding your very own unique passes!

 

Big screen action

You will all be aware that we screened a short advert on the big screen around the Bourne Ultimatum at Cinemas nationwide. Hits to the website and text enquiries around those screenings spiked, and we know that over 1.9 million people saw our advert. The ad will be on http://www.rfu.com/ for you to view.

Again, thank you all for your efforts and ideas this far and I’m sure that with the momentum of a Rugby World Cup we can continue rekindling the passion past players have for the game of Rugby!

 

Go Play Rugby to date – key statistics

• 714 participating clubs
• 2484 volunteers engaged in the campaign
• 1997 have attended 107 workshops so far
• 106 universities and 34 colleges are taking part in the campaign
• 1680 resource boxes with over 1.6 million pieces or printed support materials have gone out to clubs
• 5,120 individual text enquiries and 8,250 postcode searches online
• 12 hours of live and recorded interviews have been aired on 299 radio stations
• 164 online and radio competitions have been run
• 22 local and sky TV station stations have show 36 minutes of footage
• 165 regional press packs have gone to newspaper houses
• 1.9 million people have seen the Go Play Rugby Cinema Advert
• At least 192 local Rugby playing events have been run nationwide since launch

For more information contact:
Tom Bartram
Regional Rugby Development Officer - Staffordshire
Tel:  07841 156 806
Email:  tombartram@rfu.com