African Bank eSports challenge for clubs and Women’s coaching rolls on

The spirits are certainly high at WP Rugby after this weekend’s excellent performance from our DHL Stormers side, the launch of the African Bank eSports challenge for our clubs and our coaching courses gaining momentum.

After our win over the Toyota Cheetahs in the  Vodacom Super Rugby unlocked competition at DHL Newlands we now lie second on the log with one match remaining. This coming weekend now sees the DHL Stormers travel to Durban to face the Cell Sharks on Saturday. The team on the top of the log after this weekend will be crowned as champions of the Vodacom Super Rugby unlocked competition.

The Currie Cup will start the weekend after on 27 November with our DHL WP Rugby sides first match against the Vodacom Blue Bulls back at DHL Newlands.

On the WP Club Rugby front, we remain hard at work to get our clubs back to training as soon as possible. This has involved our COVID education process which sees our clubs learning about COVID compliance and the various regulations regarding return to training. One of the primary components being the appointment of the COVID19 compliance officers.

Staying on the club rugby front we’re excited to announce the African Bank eSports challenge for WP Club Rugby. The challenge will see a re-enactment of our 2020 league fixtures as we had initially planned for the year, except it now unfolds in the digital arena.

Over the next few weeks, our clubs will have an opportunity to enrol one player to represent their team on a Playstation console at DHL Newlands. This is very exciting for us as we see a new dimension of competitive action for our structures. The event will roll out in a format similar to our Score WP Club Rugby sevens tournament which normally sees several teams playing across several weeks on multiple fields, only now the events are played on a Playstation console as opposed to a physical field location.

Each week will see different leagues with multiple teams participating to go through to the next rounds with fixtures, logs and results information, all forming part of the excitement through to early next year.

Next week sees us begin testing at the high performance for our u20 players at the HPC for our students who are currently at university as we prepare for the new SA Rugby u20, which starts in February next year.

Last week saw us testing our u20’s who are currently finishing matric. Once this is completed we will have the university players back twice per week as we then move to physical training preparation for the competition.

Our WP Rugby women’s coaching course which is exclusively open for women as part of the Women’s rugby development programme is gaining momentum as we see a tremendous increase in awareness for the programme.

Anyone wishing to attend the “Women Only” high-performance coaches development program must complete the application form using this link and send it to Nazeem Adams nazeem@wprugby.co.za  Potential candidates must send in a CV on institution letterhead and must do the world rugby passport and covid awareness online course

Club coaches wishing to do their World Rugby level 1 and 2 and S&C courses must please email Nazeem Adams nazeem@wprugby.co.za. Coaches are reminded to complete their World Rugby passport and the Covid awareness programme by visiting the World Rugby website before applying.

It’s important to note that these courses can be completed over a period of time and that the course is in an open-book format. This then gives you time to read the information before answering the questions, then come back to the questions to complete later if you need.

Our WP Rugby Media, Marketing and Sponsorship course continues to excite our participants as we see our clubs already offering new contributions during their attendance. During the course, the attendees are advised to survey their club to better understand their audience as they build their supporter’s club model. Your contribution to the survey will be greatly appreciated. Please click here to help out by completing the survey.