School sessions to promote rugby in Geraldton a success

Rugby WA and the Classic Wallabies hosted skills sessions at Geraldton primary schools and high schools as they promote the game in the Mid West. The visits from May 6-12 coincided with the announcement that Australia will host the 2027 Rugby World Cup and 2029 Women’s Rugby World Cup. Damian Wainohu, participation manager at Rugby WA, said it was all part of their strategy to grow in the sport in the region. They ran skills sessions at primary schools and high schools around Geraldton including Champion Bay Senior High School, Geraldton Grammar School, Geraldton Christian College and Beachlands Primary School. Wainohu said the games introduced boys and girls to rugby union and taught them basic core skills. “Once you learn those sort of basic skills, we transfer them into a game scenario, a bit of fun skills based games, just to keep all the kids active and keep them running around,” he said. “Obviously utilising those skills that they’ve just learned and, and then like I say, just giving them a bit of a taste of what rugby is about and experience something a little bit different.” The Classic Wallabies included Selena Worsley, Dane Stafford Haylett- Petty, Digby Anthony Natu Ioane, Scott Higginbotham and Morgan Turinui. “We also had the Classic Wallabies in town as well for the week. So they were sort of working in tandem with ourselves as well. So they’d get involved with a lot of these skills based drills that we’re doing with a lot of the kids,” Wainohu said. “I think from our from our perspective it’s really good just to have those players in town, just to increase the profile of rugby union in the Midwest. Our main focus is obviously trying to expand rugby union footprint within Geraldton.” Wainohu said the Classic Wallabies were particularly impressed by the behaviour of the students and had already started working on plans to come back. “So I think not only for us in terms of promoting the game but I think there’s obviously more importantly a good opportunity for the boys and girls to actually see you know, Wallabies in the flesh, so to speak,” he said. “So the whole week’s been amazing, the kids have been great, every time we go up to Geraldton it’s been a pleasure working with the kids. They’re really well behaved, tentative, and they kind of just get on with it.”