Railway Union’s Jones Lang LaSalle Girls Rugby 7s Schools Programme is targeted at 4th and 5th year girls, where Railway will provide free coaching at the competing schools in the build-up to a schools tournament.

The programme takes place over six weeks to the 13th April 2013.

Railway’s Director of Women’s Rugby and former Leinster player, Shirley Corcoran, said Railway were opening places for individual girls to come on board to play on a ‘Barbarians-type’ side.

“We’ve had unprecedented interest in the programme and have signed up schools from all over the city, including The High School, Muckross College, St Mac Dara’s Community School, and Stanhope Street,” said Corcoran.  ”We’ve also had emails from parents and girls who want to participate in the programme even if their school wasn’t.  In response to this, we’ve decided to put together a composite side from interested girls.  We will train this side under lights at Railway one evening during the week, with the possibility of another session on weekend, and these girls will play as a team in the tournament on 13th April.”

Corcoran said there were huge opportunities for girls in the sport of rugby.

“This programme is an ideal opportunity for athletic girls to try rugby in a fun and enjoyable environment,” said Corcoran.

“Rugby is an excellent sport for girls and has an emphasis on fitness, skills, agility and speed. There are huge opportunities for talented girls to advance quickly in the sport, especially with rugby 7s in the Olympics in Rio 2016. ”

The coaching level will be of the highest quality and will be led by Railway’s club development officer Mere Baker. Mere is one of the most decorated female players in the game and has played 15s and 7s for New Zealand, won the rugby league world cup with New Zealand, won the Hong Kong 7s (the most prestigious 7s tournament in the world) six times and has coached international women’s 7s rugby.

Corcoran said that the announcement that rugby 7s will be included in the Olympics has created the opportunity for sports women from across the Ireland to aspire to international success in an exciting team sport.

“Railway already has one girl in the Irish 7s squad, a girl who only took up the game with us five months ago. There is the distinct possibility that we may unearth a future Olympian in this programme. There will be 15 Katie Taylors playing rugby 7s for Ireland in Rio 2016 – there is no reason that one of them can’t start here.” said Corcoran.

Training will take place under floodlights at 5.30pm on Thursday evenings from February 28th and at 10am on Saturday mornings from 2nd March.  If you or your daughter is interested in participating in the programme, please email womensrugby@railwayunionrfc.com or see www.railwayunionrfc.com/girls7scomp.