Scottish Rugby opens nominations for Girls Regional Game Series

The Series was first created and introduced in the 2022/23 season as part of Scottish Rugby’s Women’s & Girls strategy and has been developed jointly by Sottish Rugby’s Rugby Development and High-Performance departments.

The Series provides a competitive development environment for the best young players in Scotland, regardless of geography or local environment, whilst supporting talent identification and selection for National Age Grade programmes.

This year’s Series will see three teams created at U18 level and four at U16 level.

Nominated players will be invited to a regional assessment session.

Outwith the activity on the pitch, the programme also designed to create a coaching pathway and development opportunity for the female community game.

Last season, the Girls Regional Game Series provided a development platform for more than 200 players and supported the selection of players into the National Age Grade Programme.

Holland Bogan, now aged 18 and playing Senior rugby for Stirling County, was involved in the Series last year before then being selected for the U18 Age Grade Pathway and Scottish Futures Programme.

Speaking about her experience participating in the Regional Game Series, Holland said: “Playing in the Girls Regional Game Series was really good for gaining exposure playing with and against girls from different clubs. It was a great experience to learn new playing styles and I believe it betters your rugby.

“After the Series I was selected for the U18 programme where I went on to captain the U18 team at the Six Nations Festival. I was also selected for the U18 7s programme and went to Rome with the Scottish Futures to play in the Tri-Nations Series.”

Coaches can now nominate U18 and U16 players via SCRUMS*, and are encouraged to nominate those players they believe are ready to take the next step into a heightened performance environment.

Nominations open Tuesday 7 November and close Sunday 26 November.

*Player Eligibility applies: Girls U18 must be born between 1 Sep 2005 – 31 Aug 2007 and Girls U16 must be born between 1 Sep 2007 – 31 Aug 2009.

More information and supporting resourced for coaches can be found, HERE.