Saturday's thrilling Tigers home win against Harlequins was not the only big match of the day at Welford Road. Prior to the main senior event, the hallowed turf hosted the finals day of this season's Alliance & Leicester TAG Rugby Programme.
All season, Tigers' community coaches have been working hard in the primary schools of Oadby and Wigston, Market Harborough, Blaby & Lutterworth, and Hinckley and Bosworth delivering TAG coaching to children in Year 5 and 6. All the schools that took part played in local festivals to decide who would make it to their area finals at Welford Road. From there, three schools, Launde (Oadby & Wigston), St. Peters C of E (Hinckley and Market Bosworth) and Badgerbrook (Market Harborough and Blaby) were crowned Area Champions and invited to return to Welford Road to play in the Year 2 Finals.
Parents and teachers, along with those early entrants to ground, witnessed some of the best TAG rugby played at Welford Road, with all three schools demonstrating excellent handling, positional and running skills backed up with strong organisation and commitment on what was to prove one of the hottest days of the year so far.
In the first game, Badgerbrook narrowly beat Launde by nine tries to seven, while game two saw St. Peters C of E defeat Launde by six tries to four to set up a winner takes all final match against Badgerbrook.
In the first game, Badgerbrook narrowly beat Launde by nine tries to seven, while game two saw St. Peters C of E defeat Launde by six tries to four to set up a winner takes all final match against Badgerbrook.
The ffinal result was decided by the narrowest of margins, with Badgerbrook overcoming everything St. Peters could throw at them to take the game and the title by nine tries to eight.
They will now be invited back to the final game of next season where they will play 2007 winners St. Nicholas C of E Primary, Rutland, and the winners of next season's TAG programme that sees us visiting the North West Leicestershire, Charnwood and Burleigh partnerships of schools.
Our congratulations go to all the schools and teachers involved in this year's TAG programme for making it such a high standard tournament. Thanks to all the rugby clubs, partnership staff and, of course, Alliance and Leicester for their continued and superb support of this best -n-class primary schools competition and programme.
Scott Clarke
Community Manager
