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England Touch Rugby - A note from Chris Garland

Dear All,
 
Apologies for ducking under the contact rugby radar of late but I've been participating in England Touch Rugby trials for the last few months and have somehow been successful!
 
I found out about a week ago that I have been selected to play through to, and including, the World Cup in 2011.  For the past few months I have been through three trials, one southern, one northern and then the final England Selection trial at the Saracens training ground in St Albans.
 
The England Touch Rugby Association is here http://www.englandtouch.org.uk which will give you an idea of whats going on.
 
Our first tournament is the European Championships in Bristol (22–25 July 2010) http://www.toucheuros2010.com
 
The world cup is being held in Scotland the following year http://rugby.visitscotland.com/news/touch-world-cup-2011.aspx
 
I'm pretty excited as I'm sure you can imagine as personally this has given me an extension playing this version of the game for the next few years at the top level.
 
We have coaches from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia on board where touch rugby is a massive sport where its played as part of the national curriculum throughout the school years.Surprisingly its played by more players than either Union or League in these countries. I only really started playing about 3 years ago and I have taken to it in a big way. Imagine a tubby flanker playing backline style rugby surprisingly there are a lot of back row involved in the game ideas as to why on a postcard!
  
Good luck for Saturday to all the teams at TWRFC.
 
Regards
 
Chris Garland

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