Fostering young players in the game of rugby has always been the goal of the Atlantic Rugby Academy (ARA) with well-known rugby players making it big in the game.
Gearing up for the festivities at the Union-Milnerton RFC on Saturday 10 December, Campbell McCraw, ANA director says the 6-Down-Touch (6DT) Tournament has been organised to involve young players in the game of rugby.
The entire game is centred around pace, and creating space for the attacking side out wide, and to improve the skills level of the players.
“We will have an RSA player, Fabrice Nahimane (6DT), and a WP player (6DT), Michael Abrahams, explaining the finer points of the game. Both players are former Ysterplaat and ARA players. While the matches are in progress, we will have specialist position-specific coaching, run either by WP junior players or high school Premier A players,” Campbell says.
Rugby potential
Campbell says he believes that the greater Milnerton and Blaauwberg area has enormous rugby potential, and they will continue to nurture and encourage that talent through their High-Performance Centre (HPC), coaching clinics, and specialist courses.
“Our main mission at ARA is to foster rugby in our local schools by arranging in-depth coaching clinics and an HPC. We have supported Ysterplaat Primary from day one, and we enclose a fact sheet of our player achievements which include some of our Ysterplaat boys. Hacjiva Dyamani, the current Stormers and Western Province flank, is a former Ysterplaat student,” he says.
“We hope to continue to build on our alliance with Ysterplaat Primary, and to expand our efforts to also include and involve all of the other primary schools in the area,” he says.
The 6-Down-Touch Tournament will be held on Saturday 10 December.
