Sale Sharks' Community Team are delighted to record a fantastic response to their most recent initiative in partnership with Premiership Rugby. "Here Come The Girls" is a brand new tag-rugby programme for secondary school girls which aims to create and build girls' enthusiasm and enjoyment of rugby through thriving sessions centered around excitement, fun and action. Run in conjunction with Manchester Rugby Club and their Under-15 Girls Team, the programme looks to provide all girls the opportunity to continue their involvement with rugby, long beyond the culmination of their school sessions.

Sharks Community Coaches Danny Carlton and Richard Spencer have delivered five weeks of tag-rugby sessions with local schools; Stockport Grammar, Cheadle Hulme School, Wilmslow High and Bramhall High. The 5-week programme has seen over 100 girls take on tag-rugby with great energy and talent for the game.

Beyond this, Sale Sharks and Manchester Under 15's invited girls to join them for a transitional training session, allowing girls to travel down to their local club offering regular training and matches throughout the season. Despite dreadfully cold conditions on Tuesday evening, Manchester welcomed 20 brand new participants to the session with representation from each school the Sharks Community Team are visiting. All excited participants took part in a 90-minute session, including tag activities and a full tag-rugby match (including uncontested scrums and lineouts). On the back of this incredible response, many more girls are now pursuing the interest shown by others and are looking to join them for Manchester's weekly training session each Tuesday evening, 6:30-8:00pm.

As an additional reward for their commitment and efforts to attend the session despite bitter conditions, Manchester kindly offered each attending girl two complimentary tickets for last Friday's game v. Exeter Chiefs. Manchester's allocation of tickets was donated to them by Printerland.co.uk, official sponsors of Sale Sharks, who have teamed up with Lexmark to promote the sport of rugby union to schools and rugby clubs across the North West.

Sharks Community Development Officer Danny Carlton commented, "It's great to able to work alongside schools to boost the interest in girls 'rugby and be able to provide player pathways into local grassroots clubs. The Aviva Premiership Rugby clubs are working with schools and grassroots clubs to develop girls' rugby regionally to increase the participation of the sport and raise its profile. From Sale Sharks' point of view, to record a rate close to 1 in 5 of our participants making the choice to pursue rugby further down at their local club is simply fantastic. We are very proud that, through our work and the "Here Come The Girls" programme, such a magnificent response and interest in rugby has arisen amongst the young players."