The day was a great success, with clubs from Canberra including Uni-Norths, Gungahlin and Wests all travelling to Yass, while sides also came from as far afield as Milton on the south coast and Cooma.

Junior Rams President Greg Weller praised the work of the club volunteers to pull the day together, which went off without a hitch. Greg explained that the ACT Junior Rugby has recently brought in a system whereby clubs are supported to hold gala days to increase the presence of rugby in the community.  

“After a trial last season, the new competition structure has meant that clubs will now host regular gala days with all sides at home, as well as additional matches between other clubs, not including the home team,” Greg said.

“This means that the club can focus on a few large days, and it gets a real buzz going around the ground, with lots of games at the one venue.”

After weeks of wild weather, the club was also fortunate that the rain even stayed away for the day.

“The weather has not been ideal for sport over recent weeks but fortunately it stayed fine for the day. However, there were some very muddy kids at the end of the day and whoever will be washing the jersey will have their work cut out,” Greg said.

The improved competition and some busy offseason recruiting have contributed to an increase in numbers of children registered with the club this season.

“Player numbers have increased this season, which has been great for the club and giving boys and girls a chance to experience the sport of rugby,” Greg said.

“One of the real growth areas of the sport, more broadly, has been female participation, which is no doubt encouraged by the great performances of the Australian women’s sevens team, who are now ranked number one in the world and a real chance at gold in the Rio Olympics.”

As well as promoting rugby in the community, the gala day is also very important to the junior Rams fundraising activities, which took a bit of a twist this year. Along with the usual fundraising activities, the club had a rather unique raffle prize on offer, with a study desk ideal for high school students previously owned by none other than the highest capped Wallaby of all time, George Gregan. George’s parents John and Jenny kindly donated the desk along with some memorabilia from George’s junior rugby days and were on hand to draw the raffle.

The gala day also capped off a good week for junior representative rugby for Rams players, with Yass juniors Sam Clark, Fraser Weller, Timothy McPhillips and Tom Anderson all winning selection in the Canberra and Goulburn Archdiocese side to play at the Mackillop trials in Forbes next week. Sam was also returning to club competition for the Rams on Saturday after playing for Junior Brumbies in Camden over the June long weekend.

All junior and senior Rams sides will be at home together for the last time this weekend, on Saturday June 25, so anyone interested in finding out more about the club or the sport of rugby are welcome to come down to Victoria Park in Yass.

Contributed.