Today I will be at Narberth, with Maesteg Harlequins R.F.C. Not an official visit in terms of my role as Mid-Glamorgan’s High Sheriff, but I’ll be parading pitch-side as Honorary Club Doctor.
A lifelong rugby follower, what son of the Llynfi valley, isn't? Career commitments restricted my involvement in the sport. Yet, when the opportunity arose to become involved in the sport, the manner in which I was embraced by the Maesteg Harlequins, meant it was the club for me.
Being a totally amateur team in transition, while competing in a league where some clubs are paying sums that could well be considered a second income, it has been a tough season for Maesteg Quins. I have such great admiration for every single player who has donned the ‘Coal Black and Blood Red’ this campaign. They have been remarkably resilient.
On the other hand, Narberth require a point to be crowned champions of WRU Championship [West]. Today, true champions will be on view for both teams. After watching success after success with the Harlequins, the players remind me of the words of a committed Quins man:
Pan fydd saethau'r gelyn yn tywyllu haul canol dydd,
Dyna'r union awr
Wir ryfelwyr
sy'n rheoli muriau'r castell.
[When enemy arrows darken the mid-day sun,
That is the exact hour,
True warriors
man the castle walls].
Boxing was the sport at which my father excelled and pugilism has saved many a ‘rogue.’ However, it is a lonely, brutal game. Whereas rugby gathers at least twenty people together.
The diverse characters found in all sports clubs, who come together to achieve goals is a remarkable event that takes place every time a match is played or training undertaken. Rugby, with it’s plethora of shapes, sizes, competencies or otherwise is a game like no other.
Not just in physical or cerebral qualities, does rugby unite bands of brotherhoods. It’s the variety of backgrounds each individual player brings which is also phenomenal. How many players have we heard about, read about or know personally, who have defeated sociological odds or personal demons, to rise above their circumstances to lace up a pair of boots and achieve? It could be reckoned at least one player in every club has been saved from the ignominy of a life less well spent.
This is why I have chosen a rugby based charity, as the medium through which lives can be changed for more positive outcomes.
On Saturday, May, 18th, a ‘Touch Rugby’ tournament will be held at Maesteg Harlequins’ South Parade Playing Fields. The beneficiaries will be Dallaglio RugbyWorks. A charitable organisation that in the words of its mission statement:
“uses rugby’s core values of teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship to equip young people that are excluded from education, with the life skills and attitudes they need to move into sustained Education, Employment or Training after school.”
In the evening we have, what promises to be, an excellent evening’s entertainment for all rugby enthusiasts. Former Ospreys and Bristol R.F.C. coach, TV pundit and Maesteg, Aberafan and Rugby Lions player Sean Holley. There may even be a family link to the club which Sean could enlighten us upon.
The other guest really doesn’t need an introduction in any part of the rugby globe, in either code of the sport. In an age where the term ‘legend’ is used far too liberally, local lad Allan Bateman really does epitomise the word. A dual-code Welsh international and British Lion, having played Union for Maesteg, Neath, Richmond, Northampton, Ebbw Vale and Heol y Cyw. In League, Bateman represented Warrington, Cronulla Sharks and Bridgend Blue Bulls.
Tickets are available now from Maesteg Harlequins R.F.C. at just £10 each.
I’d love to see you at either or both events and in doing so, you’ll be supporting young people to enter what we know as the wonderful world of Rugby Union, and achieve more in their lives.
I hope to see you on May 18th.