The Isle of Man will have a rugby sevens team at the 2030 Commonwealth Games.

That was the bold aim revealed by the island’s rugby development officer Chris Brannigan at the launch of this season’s Isle of Man under-18s sevens squad last week.

Speaking at Friday’s event at the Isle of Man Sport Institute, Brannigan said: ’Ultimately we want to be reaching the Commonwealth Games. The 2030 Games is probably realistic. Since 2010 Jamaica, Zambia, Uganda, Cook Islands, Barbados and Guyana have all had sides at the Commonwealths. Why not the Isle of Man?’

’We need to be constantly getting better each week, each month, each year and this gives us a really big goal to aim for. This isn’t a programme for five minutes, or two years, it’s a programme to hopefully take the Isle of Man decades down the line.’

Reflecting on the re-establishment of an u18s squad in 2019 that has kick started this, Brannigan added: ’The aim is to pick up the legacy that began when the island hosted the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2011 and competed in the event’s rugby sevens competiton.

’We are losing kids aged 16 to 19 from the sport and we hope by re-establishing the sevens squad we can combat this drop off. ’

The three head coaches running the programme along with Brannigan are former Scotland age-group cap George Blackwell, Vagabonds RUFC’s ex-Namibian international Ryan De la Harpe and Douglas RUFC winger James Maddrell. Jack Caine is the squad’s analyst.

Blackwell said: ’I never had the chance to represent the Isle of Man. Hopefully we are now giving aspiring players in this age group some kind of aspirational pathway with the sevens squad at the top. Hopefully it will make younger players think "I really want to represent the Isle of Man one day".

’We don’t want this to be a flash in the pan. It’s a platform for them to act like a professional, which is something they haven’t had the chance to do before.’

After a successful first forray into sevens last season, the Manx teenagers are planning trips to four events this year including the Junior 7s International Cup in Portugal in a couple of week’s time.

Before the squad jet off to Lisbon though they kick-off their season this weekend much closer to home at the Rossall Schools sevens competition in Lancashire.

The teens will also make a second visit to the North of England Sevens competition at the beginning of March before a trip to the prestigious Rosslyn Park National Schools Sevens, where they impressed on their debut last year, at the end of the same month.

Brannigan added: ’We’ve managed to get enough money from sponsors to make all the trips affordable and accessible to all. If you turn up to training and have the right attitude, have the ability, the commitment and show the behaviours we expect from a squad member then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be included.’

Isle of Man U18s squad:

Patreece Bell, Ben Bloch, Elliott Callow, Jonty Cope, Illiam Cowin, Max Fairbairn, Jamie Hopwood, Ethan Kermode, Django Kinley, Steven Kneale, Craig Martin, Kyle Martin, Finn McGregor, Jacob Meechan, Nathan Page, Luca Simmons, Callum Smith, Harri Wallis and Angus Wheeler.