Tag Rugby

Try Tag Rugby would like to publicly offer its support to Prince William, who has launched a project to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee by saving hundreds of playing fields. The aim is to create or preserve 2,012 open spaces by 2012, the year the queen celebrates 60 years on the throne. Try Tag Rugby Managing Director Alistair Davis was very pleased to hear of this initiative. "Within central and inner London there is a shortage of bookable fields available for playing sport. These areas are full of young adults who are keen to participate in sport, but the lack of facilities is holding them back and no doubt damaging the health of London residents. Furthermore these areas are also home to large numbers of black and ethnic minority children, who generally have low participation in sport. "As a London based sports organisation we are very pleased to see the Prince taking steps to make sure a large number of playing fields remain untouched in the future. We will be doing all we can to make sure central and inner London's playing fields are included in the scheme." Fields in Trust, which is running the project, says a report from last month indicated that 6,000 playing fields have been lost since 1992. Davis added "Try Tag Rugby currently run adult mixed, men's and ladies' Tag Rugby competitions in the Boroughs of Haringey, Hammersmith & Fulham, Wandsworth, Brent and Southwark and will soon be launching in Richmond and Croydon. We recently investigated launching a competition in the Borough of Tower Hamlets, but were told there isn't one available sports pitch that could be booked over the summer. Considering Tower Hamlets is one of five host Boroughs for the 2012 London Olympics, we found this extremely surprising and disappointing news. The lack of available pitches in Tower Hamlets just goes to show the shortage of sports facilities available in some parts of London and throughout the UK." Tag Rugby is a minimal contact team game in which each player wears shorts with velcro patches with two tags attached to them. The mode of play is similar to Touch Rugby with attacking players attempting to dodge, evade and pass a rugby ball while defenders attempt to prevent them scoring by "tagging" - pulling a velcro attached tag from the ball carrier. Currently 600 adults play Tag Rugby in competitions across London.