If you are lucky enough to find yourself on the beach in Rio de Janeiro, don’t be surprised if you see some youngsters playing Beach Rugby in Southport RFC playing kit!

Premiership Rugby in partnership with the British Council and SESI in Brazil is currently running an innovative award winning rugby programme based in Brazil, introducing 50,000 young people to rugby during its first year.

This programme is also backed by Jaguar Land Rover and when Southport U15 Manager Mark Pennifold (who works for JLR), recently visited their factory in Brazil, he knew they were desperate for support for these young players with their predominantly underprivileged backgrounds.

Southport RFC has, as you probably know, updated their playing kit this year across the whole club, so what better to do than to donate some of the old one to the initiative and the Brazilian youngsters.

These were handed over to Andrew Turner (Premiership Rugby Community Coach) who is attached to the programme in Rio and who wished to pass on this message to our club ...
“Thank you very much on behalf of Try Rugby RJ and our students here for such a kind gesture. They were absolutely delighted. Who knows, perhaps Brazil could be a future tour destination for Southport!”

Just a few of the young players who benefited can be seen in their new kit in the photo above. In addition some of the U15 players also donated some of their own old rugby shirts, which explains the ‘Batman’ shirt in the photo!

Thanks Mark on behalf of the club for arranging this.

Follow the link below for a short video highlighting ‘Try Rugby Brazil’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_r-erm8i10