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Around 750 children, attending 72 primary schools across Plymouth and West Devon, took part in this all day knock-out Tag Festival. Car Parks began to fill with mini-buses from 9 o’clock and the College Traffic Wardens were soon hard at work directing traffic and allocating parking spaces. To ensure fairness of play, the schools are divided into “Small Schools” and “Large Schools” and put into ‘pools’ for the preliminary rounds with 15 matches of 10 minutes duration played on each of the individual 12 pitches. The Referees for the day were volunteers from the local Police and students from Marjon, all of whom attended specially arranged referee training courses prior to the event, to prepare for this challenging role. A short 20 minute lunch-break was spent in bringing together all the results of the preliminary matches in front of a crowd of very eager children all vying to see who was playing who for the knock-out stages. During this break the fair play prizes were handed out; one school from each of the 12 pitches received a set of Yazoo bibs & tags for fair play. The ‘Tag in a Bag’ prize went to the school who raised the most money for Child Victims of Crime (CVC), the registered charity of the GB Police Rugby Section; this year it went to Prince Rock Primary who raised a staggering £145.72 All winners & runners-up received a medal provided by CVC, who also provide the training for the referees. During the afternoon the knock out stages were battled out with Yealmpton Primary taking the Small Schools main trophy and Ermington School taking the Large Schools main trophy. At a date now to be arranged between the two schools, Yealmpton will play Ermington for the coveted prize of the opportunity to play in the National Tag Rugby Finals at Rugby School, Warwickshire on 11 July 2007. All in all, a very successful day – the sun shone and the children enjoyed themselves tremendously. This enjoyment further enhanced by the presence of the RFU Events Van with wonderful staff only too eager to talk to the children about England’s World Cup win in 2003 and to give them posters depicting ‘the good and the great’ in Rugby history. A long queue formed at one point in the day when Plymouth Albion players arrived and began autographing the posters for the eager and excited children. Donations to the CVC are still coming in but it is hoped that over £1,000 will be collected towards this very worthwhile charity who work so tirelessly to help young children, affected by crime. All money donated to the charity, raised by the Tag Festival, is spent on helping children in the Plymouth and West Devon area. Everyone was a winner on the day; regardless of the final result as FAIR PLAY was evident in every game and everyone played to the best of their ability. Diane Smith
Administrator – Sports Centre   
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