Vagabonds Ladies Rugby Club are currently flying the flag for the Isle of Man in the Women’s NC1 North West English league.

Therefore, it would be easy to assume that the supporting infrastructure for player development was up and running and a steady conveyor belt was nurturing talent through a network of girls rugby across the island.

The simple fact is that no such pathway exists, or at least didn’t exist until now.

Isle of Man rugby development officer Chris Brannigan identified early in his tenure that there was an appetite for girls rugby right across the age ranges, but with clubs firmly focussed on men’s rugby the girls were being overlooked.

While they can play non-contact mixed tag rugby until school year six, from that point onwards the game changes to contact and under RFU rules, the sexes can no longer mix.

This was leaving girls aged between 11-17 with no place to practice all the skills and moves they have learned and, while they’re more than welcome at Vagabonds’ non-contact training, there’s no real substitute for game time.

Ramsey Rugby Club coach Gareth Hinge together with fellow coaches Dave Harding, Bev Quine and Danny Boyes have decided they will buck the trend and organised a ’come and try it’ day under the RFU’s Inner Warrior scheme and have subsequently been holding regular girls training.

With no on-island opposition, they looked further afield for game time and last weekend took a group of 23 girls away to Fleetwood for a mini tournament with Fleetwood, Preston Grasshoppers, Burnley, West Park St Helens as well as Ormskirk.

In the under-13s group, the Ramsey girls started off hesitantly against a team made up from Fleetwood, West Park St Helens and Ormskirk girls. The opposition were obviously more experienced and Ramsey conceded quite a few tries in the first half.

But the second half was a different story: after summoning their inner warrior, the girls made some tackles ’stick’ and counter attacked with pace and very skilful passing moves to score some brilliant tries.

Overall the home team just edged the result but the Ramsey girls gained a massive amount of experience which will hold them in good stead for future games.

In the u15 age group, eight Ramsey girls joined forces with West Park St Helens to take on a combined team from Fleetwood, Preston Grasshoppers and Burnley.

For the majority of the Ramsey players this was their first competitive match and a real eye-opener as to what the game of rugby actually feels like.

Taking their lead from the West Park girls, the Ramsey players soon got into the swing of things; with some tremendous displays of teamwork in the breakdowns and creative attack in the back line they soon crossed the line for the first try of seven and ran out 41-20 winners.

The Ramsey players involved were Alex Faragher; Freya Crowe, Caitlin Henery, Ella Wood, Isla Gale (captain), Isabella Boyes, Hailey-Eris Reader and Erin Corkill.

Despite a number of the girls never having played in a contact situation before, they acquitted themselves well and made many new friends in the process. Afterwards Gareth paid tribute to an anonymous donor whose generosity made the trip possible.

Not wanting to lose impetus, Gareth and his team would like to make a further trip this season to build on their success and are looking for another sponsor who may help them underwrite the cost of the inevitable air fares. If you’re interested in assisting, you can contact Gareth on 473087.

DAVE CHRISTIAN