Inclusive Tag Festival a Huge Success
For over 10 years, Wooden Spoon has helped to fund the international Inclusive Tag Rugby Festival. It has been held across the UK and Ireland and last year it was held in Venice. Inclusive tag rugby and the festival gives young people with disabilities the opportunity to face challenges positively and make connections through the power of rugby.
On Sunday, the IRFU hosted the inclusive tag rugby festival. The event, funded by Wooden Spoon, was held at the prestigious High Performance Training centre in Dublin where the Irish National team train.
The weather was glorious and there were smiles all round with 36 teams involved, mainly from across Ireland but we were also honoured to welcome Stefano Cibin and a small delegation from the Mirano Dragons, who hosted the disability tag festival in Venice last year.
The festival was described as a big celebration of rugby with Wooden Spoon mascot ‘Spoony’ cheering the teams on and every team receiving a mini wooden spoon and a beautiful wooden carving for taking part.
Matt Mitchell, Wooden Spoon Rugby Manager said “It was lovely to see the children and young people working together as a team. The festival was focused on building connections between the players all with different abilities, many of whom struggle with communication. They flourish when rugby is involved”
A special thank you goes to our loyal British & Irish Wooden Spoon National Vets team who travelled to Ireland to volunteer and support this event. They also represented Wooden Spoon in a vets match against Old Wesley on the Saturday, before undertaking a pilgrimage to O’Donaghues pub, the very place where the idea of Wooden Spoon was born 40 years ago.
Wooden Spoon is proud to support all forms of inclusive rugby ( tag, mixed ability, VI) and now wants to build on the momentum and work towards removing barriers so that all children have the opportunity to play rugby regardless of their background.
We would love to keep you informed of opportunities to play rugby in the future including at the Wooden Spoon Tag Festival. Please follow the link for more information.