Hitz Team Play Their First Competitive Game

A major milestone in the Hitz rugby programme in London was achieved when a set of boys who had never played the game before last summer took part in their first organised match in Southwark's Burgess Park yesterday (Sunday October 10).

The new Southwark Tigers Under-16 team was made up of participants in the Hitz sessions which run at Bacon's College and Burgess Park on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. The team took on Chipstead B in the Surrey Youth League on a red-letter day for Hitz which aims to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour by offering participation in rugby and providing opportunities to support participants back into education, employment and volunteering.

It is running in Southwark and five other boroughs across London, bringing together the Metropolitan Police, Active Communities Network, Premiership Rugby, Rugby Football Union and Wooden Spoon to deliver a social inclusion programme for 11 to 19 year old girls and boys, using the power of rugby union and its core values including teamwork, respect and discipline.

Playing their first ever rugby match, the Hitz boys led by captain and loosehead prop Royce Edwards had to deal with all facets of the game including scrums and lineouts. The team's coach, Hitz officer Mikey Williams, was proud of the performance in a 30-5 defeat, and received praise from the Chipstead coaches, whose boys have been playing rugby together for more than five years.

"The team was 20-0 down at half-time but they kept their heads and rallied massively and scored a try in the second half," said Williams, a community coach with Aviva Premiership club London Irish.

"If the team had just been thrown together instead of coming through the Hitz sessions they might have fallen apart. The boys learnt an awful lot about how to play properly from this first match, and they have more league fixtures coming up in which they can keep getting better.

"But the Hitz programme is not about winning matches. It is about rugby's core values and good principles such as turning up for the sessions on time, and boys and girls applying themselves individually and as part of a team."

Five of the Southwark Tigers Hitz team attend Walworth Comprehensive School on the Aylesbury Estate and others come from around the borough, including Elephant & Castle and Peckham.

"When I started with Hitz a few months ago I wasn't sure we'd ever get a team out, and there were plenty of others who shared that opinion," said Williams. "To get 15 boys out playing in the Hitz kit, under the Southwark Tigers name, is quite an achievement. Hitz is not about running a club, it is about taking part in the midweek sessions and then in Southwark if they wish to join a club they can do so with the Tigers. "We have got a core of 10 who are really enthusiastic, and the next step is to have a core of 20. The boys were talking after the match about who they can invite along next time, and it is great to see them beginning to take responsibility for sorting things out." Hitz rugby sessions for 11 to 19 year old boys and girls are free and take place in Southwark at Bacon's College on Tuesdays from 4pm to 6pm and Wednesdays from 5pm to 7pm.

Interested in playing rugby?
Why not search for a Hitz project near you.