Stewartry Sirens are gearing up for another promotion push next season.
They just missed out on a place in the Tennent’s Women’s Premiership after a narrow play-off defeat to Garioch last term.
And as they get ready for another campaign, they are holding a recruitment night at Greenlaw next week that anyone is welcome to attend – even if they haven’t played rugby before.
Vice captain Lauren Nicholson said: “We’ve had a lot of recruitment over the last year and it resulted in a pretty successful season for us.
“This year we’ve got loads of stuff happening over the summer to recruit for the upcoming season as we want to get that Premiership place.
“The night next week is open to anyone to come and give it a try – any ability, any age over 16 and any fitness level as well.
“A lot of people, when they think about sport, think about being already fit but joining the team will get them fit.”
The come and try session will take place at Stewartry RFC’s Greenlaw ground on Thursday, June 30, between 7pm and 8pm followed by a social event.
Lauren said: “We’re going to a run really light training session so people just need to come in active wear and trainers and it’ll just be a fun session. There’ll be no full contact because you can’t do that until they’ve been taught to do it properly.
“Last season we had 12 new players start with us and eight had never played rugby before. One of them then went on to win one of the awards last year.
“It’s a good time to start as at the start of the season we’ll do our different coaching blocks – there will be an attacking one and a defensive one so everything does get stripped right back.
“It’ll be followed by a half hour social event where we’re going to get some food together and a lot of the players will be there so it’ll be a chance for people to ask questions and see if it’s something they’d like to do.”
“The Sirens are a very social team – we are the longest running team in D&G for women’s rugby and a lot of those who started originally 12 years ago are still with the team.
“The 12 that started this year were between 18 and 21 which is good as it’s given us oldies a breath of socialising so they’re making us feel young again!”
Dav Thomson is remaining as Sirens coach for the coming campaign and has the highest coaching qualifications available in UK club rugby.
The Sirens also have a strength and conditioning coach, forwards coach and a backs coach, meaning they can adapt training plans for anyone.
Pre-season training begins on July 7 at Greenlaw at 7pm and fitness work planned in New Abbey on July 14, with players meeting at the bottom of the monument at 7pm for fitness work.
And sessions at the running track at Dalbeattie Learning Campus will be held at 7pm on July 21 and 28.
To find out more, head along
to Greenlaw on June 30 or visit https://www.facebook.com/stewartry.sirens
