Rugby was introduced to St Laurence’s National School, Sallins, five years ago and has expanded to the extent that the school now fields four teams, one each in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th class.
While the school engages in up to eight different sports, rugby has firmly established itself within the school. There are now a total of 55 boys on the rugby panel this year. In addition, two girls, who both play rugby for Naas RFC, have added a new and positive dimension to promoting the game within the school.
The panel started pre-season training last October with matches beginning in November. Their season finishes this month. Training takes place every Tuesday in the school field from 3pm to 4pm. The children in the school are very lucky to have many teachers and parents who give up their time and expertise to coach rugby.
Naas Rugby Club and Clongowes Wood College, have kindly given permission for Sallins NS to use their pitches and facilities for home matches. The school’s parents council also help out by providing refreshments for both the home and away teams after matches.
Sallins NS remains the only primary school in Kildare to have active rugby teams. This season the four teams have played home and away matches against Willow Park, St Gerard’s and Catholic University School (CUS). They have been very competitive in all of these fixtures.
In recent seasons, the 6th class team has played games against 1st year ‘C’ teams from well-established rugby playing secondary schools in Kildare such as Clongowes Wood College and Newbridge College.
Rugby has become very popular with the children of Sallins National School. Hopefully, within the next few years, other primary schools in Kildare and around the province will follow its example and set up rugby teams in their school.
Any schools interested in organising a rugby fixture with Sallins NS please e-mail: peter.kelly@sallinsns.ie.
