Harrogate Fire Ants

The problem we have is that we have England touch which were once linked to O2 and have their own set of rules. We also have the RFL community run Touch Rugby League too. Possibly too many options

TTRL has recently teamed up with the Bulls foundation and they run a midweek league (South) at lightcliffe along with the already established Bradford and Bingley league. There are 4 league events a week in the general Leeds area and 1 in Wakefield with Sheffield also being proposed. More pro club foundations need to take the reins on this especially as they can often provide the facilities too which will make things a bit cheaper and the fan base could easily be raised the profile of. Yorkshire host a national team event at Stanningley RL in August every year which is a great day out and there are several other events too in London amongst having the opportunity to apply to play at Magic (during half time on the pitch) amongst other events. On another form with X-league they have recently gone into the beach form with an event scheduled on 25th September between 1-3pm at Bridlington South Beach. If you Facebook @BridBeachXLeague or twitter @BridBeachRL you will find full contact info and details.

I personally (not sure if achievable) would like the RFL to operate TTR the same way FIFA/The FA do with Futsal. Yes 11 aside is a different sport to 5 aside but it has the same governing body. I don't know what Futsal brings FIFA but imagine it's a similar principle. It's great TTR gets a slot to show at magic and I personally think its great that so many people are playing

That's the bit that's frustrating as with X-league on the AGM we had Ashley Denton from the RFL community department on the call. It is being spearheaded by former player Des Foy, who has created the concept adapted from Eurotag. However TTR is listed on the RFLs website but no explanation as to how the 2 organisations work together. Even if no monetary benefit, awareness benefits are just as powerful.

Hi again, Regarding TTRL you are right in the sense of franchising as the kit sales are sold solely on their website and the leagues are run as a franchise. The best website is https://xleaguerl.com The above breaks down the rules etc. I am on the steering group for X-league hence the promotion, the videos you have seen so far are of us playing on a 4G cage pitch practicing attack vs defence we usually play 5v5 but in tournaments thats 7v7. We have been tapping into the Corporate market (ideas taken by listening to Coventry and London tag leagues as well as Leeds) and our social sessions are arranged at 7pm on a Friday for people who want a bit of fitness and fun, we can get 4, 13 mins games in a hour if run to schedule. Realistically X-league has a big gap to fill in a sense of getting to the touch Rugby standards. The idea along with the World Cup in November is to have a yearly "grand prix" circuit of X-league tournaments held around the country. We are also going to be running a mid week North Yorkshire round robin cup which we have had alot of interest to expand the variant with the view of that becoming Yorkshire wide maybe as a county competition, then expanding that to county vs county for country selection as it gets bigger. In all honesty I think most of the TTRL players are fitness people 1st off who are looking for something different than the gym, the vast majority won't know the RFL are linked to the franchise as other than it being played at magic weekend it doesn't get mentioned.

I totally agree with the above. In setting up the new club over the last 12 months the "minimal contact" variants definitely have to be at the forefront. Full contact at open age community level becomes a harder sell especially with commitment of potentially 2 training nights and game day on a Saturday at most open age clubs. TTR/X-League gives you fitness and ball handling skills plus still a good product with the speed of it. We have pretty much lost Touch Rugby although it has 6 tackles and the roll the ball "O2 touch" and England touch change the other rules to make it more like union each year. Its what we group them in is it. Minimal contact Rugby League or Social Rugby League or a mix of both. TTRL could easily be played at club level and enter a team into your local TTRL league too, same as X-league and their tournaments.

It depends how you do it. If you join a league run by TTR you have to buy the official shorts which are in the region of £12-15. You then pay per "season" 8-10 games depending on the league roughly £35 per player. However you have to travel to the venue where all other equipment and referees are supplied. In that sense it can get quite costly as £35 every 8-10 weeks plus travel for a 40 min match where you might not play all of it. If you do it yourself as a club you have to buy the base materials, shorts, tags etc and then play at a venue. It's all dependent on the players that are interested, we as a club are looking at having a tag social side on top of our Friday evening X-League depending on numbers.

Probably but tag shorts are only £13 each not exactly an end game in pricing especially with the costs of boots these days.