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Get Into Rugby in a Moroccan way – At the beginning of April, the entire Rugby Africa’s team found itself in Marrakesh for a seminar to celebrate the confederation’s 30th anniversary. the Moroccan Royal Rugby Union seized this opportunity to launch its Get Into Rugby program with a tournament.
At El Harti stadium in Marrakesh over 490 children participated in matches and games of all kinds while only 300 kids were invited at first. The day was divided into two parts, the first one illustrated the phase ” Try ” of Get Into Rugby. Try rugby, get in touch with this new sport, have a first contact with the ball. Then, our new players started the ” Play ” phase, a more concrete second part which allowed those comfortable enough to play short rugby matches to close the festival.
In total, 497 children were on the ground among which 302 boys and 195 girls from 7 to 15 years old and supervised by 30 educators, 18 men and 12 women. About ten disabled children could also get a first experience with rugby, all enjoyed this day tremendously as they got to play rugby, sing and dance !
To get everybody ready for the big day, the supervisor delivered a half-day training course before the tournament. The educators were young students for the majority of them.
This festival was organized, in the Moroccan way, all in music and dance for the enjoyment of the participants. Key figures attended the demonstration show such as Abdelaziz Bougja, Rugby Africa’s chairman as well as all the Executive committee, Morgan Buckley from World Rugby, Lino Bacco from Radio Mars, and some other most welcomed media broadcasting some sequences on national tv channels.
The tournament ended by one minute of silence then one minute of applause in memory of Jean-Luc Barthès, real architect of training and development of the African rugby, who fought for 15 years for the success of this Get Into Rugby project. All the children then sang the Moroccan national anthem.
This event opened the doors to a circuit of festivals which will be organized all over the Moroccan territory in the next few weeks. The Ministry of Education scheduled the school national championship of rugby in Marrakesh during the week which followed the Rugby Africa’s seminar ; and a couple of hundred pupils supported the colors of their respective schools. Coming next is the “Spring of the Moroccan rugby ” from May 8th to 14th in Rabat where more than a thousand children are expected.
