Dear Parents and Players,
We wanted to let you know what the Berkshire Rugby picture looks like for this season and explain some enforced changes to how age grade representational rugby (County rugby at U14, U15 and U16) is now structured.
U14s do not play matches, there is ONLY London Irish DPP for these boys. If London Irish choose to, they may play small matches within the DPP programme but that decision lies with London Irish.
The U15 and U16 programme underwent changes at the end of the 2019/20 season.
These changes essentially mean that players can only play for Berkshire IF they are selected into the London Irish DPP. We are not permitted to run or select our own County squad and can only utilise players from the London Irish DPP to fill our teams.
We also will not have any separate County training sessions with these age groups prior to our fixtures. In Berkshire we have had a close relationship with London Irish for a number of years and a good proportion of the DPP coaches in Berkshire are also our County Coaches, therefore they will have knowledge of the boys and their skills and attributes prior to any match played.
U15s will only play INTER DPP fixtures and will not represent Berkshire, this season.
U16s will play 2 INTER DPP fixtures and 2 external County fixtures this season
2021/2022 Season
U15’s – There will be 3 U15 games within the DPP in May 2022. These will only be INTER DPP fixtures and will not involve Berkshire.
U16’s – The U16’s will have 4 playing opportunities during the season. The sessions in November 2021 and early February will be INTER DPP fixtures. The other 2 matches in late February and March 2022 are planned to be against other non DPP counties
U17’s – are run solely by Berkshire. The playing opportunities for U17s are in May 2022.15th, 22nd and 29th and these fixtures have all been agreed with different neighbouring counties.
U18’s – are also run solely by Berkshire with training and development sessions working towards England South West Divisional selection matches in early and mid December where Berkshire will select a 23 man squad to represent our county. Boys selected from the England South West divisional trials will go forward to represent England South West Counties division in a couple of matches in Spring 2022.
Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do my best to help you.
Yours faithfully,
Maria Jaffray
Berkshire RFU Youth Chair (Boys and Girls)
