Last Friday we had the honour to invite Rugby League Club Tivat Arsenal to give them an introduction to Touch Rugby.
RLK Tivat Arsenal from Montenegro are looking around to start with a Touch Rugby Association to bring a new nation into the scene. 8 players flew over all the way from Montenegro to Eindhoven Airport to visit HRC in The Hague where they stayed over at a hotel. 1 drove all the way from Belgium to The Hague!
The planning for the evening was to start the clinic at 19:00 hrs and finish at – 21:00 hrs, with guidance from Armance, Celine, Bradley, Lisa and Duun from the Xtreme Ladies (big thanks).
The clinic didn’t quite start on schedule (due to logistical problems from taxis), but that didn’t kill the mood and once the players arrived on the field they couldn’t wait to start playing Touch and neither could we!
As our friends from Montenegro were joining their first abroad Touch Tournament the next day, we played games 6 vs 6 to give them a proper Touch Rugby experience.
Meanwhile, we taught them the rules and skills to give them a good idea of what they could expect the next day. But we have to say that this bunch of guys were really nice, patient, curious and open to understanding the game (even with a good discussion in between about how to improve themselves)!
After the clinic we went upstairs in the clubhouse to have drinks, snacks and nice chats together. Also conversations started about their vision and what they want to achieve with Touch Rugby in their country, as they believe that kids should start with Touch Rugby from a young until the age of 14 when the can start to play contact rugby. They believe that Touch can bring a lot of valuable skills to young players before they decide to play any form of Rugby with contact, but also the fact boys and girls can play together in one team as a mixed sport.
For next time, we have been invited to go their way and help them set up Touch Rugby in Montenegro! And by this, we think we have found a nice new partner abroad to work on nice things for the future!
Besides that, we want to thank Jérôme Terrier for hosting and organising the clinic with the boys of RLK Tivat Arsenal. Without him this connection would never have been made, we are very happy to add more friends to the Touch Community!
Looking forward to our next event with our friends from Montenegro!
