Harrogate Fire Ants
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Posts posted by Harrogate Fire Ants
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On 24/04/2021 at 08:06, JM2010 said:
I think community clubs running tag leagues could work well. It would bring in lots of people on a midweek evening and also raises awareness of the club in the local community. It might even attract a few volunteers or players to the full contact side of the club as a result.
It could also be taken a step further where each club who runs a Tag league in the same town/city/district could then select a rep side from the players to compete in a 1 day tournament against the other clubs.
Another idea could be to run a play off between the winners of each league at the different clubs
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.
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1 hour ago, OriginalMrC said:
I don't get what your point is. TTR is a variant of Rugby League which is very successful and played by a lot of people. Surely lots more people playing a form of the sport is the benefit to Rugby League. It is in a lot of ways its a different sport, and is also a separate business so other than being the governing body and promoting the game I am not sure what else you think the RFL should do?
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
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5 minutes ago, unapologetic pedant said:
One annoying point definitely keeps coming round. Some posters keep depicting TTRL and the RFL as "aligned" without giving any further detail.
On the TTRL site, the RFL are listed as a partner alongside their commercial sponsors. There is no mention of an organisational role for the RFL, nor of any active cooperation. So what tangible form does the alignment take, and what benefits have accrued to the game of RL from it?
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.
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On 08/01/2021 at 13:02, The Rocket said:
G`day Harrogate, I`ve been back a few times now to have a look at the footage you posted of X-League being played on what looks like a tennis court, I also searched high and low for the post where you describe the rules of X-League but have been unable to find it, Pedant gives one clue away below about the touch being on the ball, and I think you mention kicking somewhere as well. Couple of things, firstly I assume the game could be scaled up so that more than three players per side could be accommodated, is that so, and perhaps if you could refer to me something to get a better handle on the rules.
You explain very comprehensively above where you are coming from in trying to set a `Touch` competition that is not automatically associated with English Rugby union on the one hand and yet your desire to avoid the prohibitively expensive costs associated with a TTR franchise for your participants on the other, especially in what is a bit of fun on a weeknight.
I suppose the RLF are in a bind here because they can`t subsidise the costs of shorts and tags for Rugby League clubs like yourself because they are affiliated with the TTR franchise system and they TTR I gather are making money out of selling that kit. And having read the TTR franchise promotion you posted earlier it is depressingly `rugby this` and `rugby that`, honestly it sounded like one great big promotion for union to me.
Do you ultimately consider X-League to be to be English Rugby Leagues` long term competitor with England Rugby`s domination of the Touch competitions, would that be your ultimate goal, you did mention that you are having a WC in November and have RFL backing., and what are their plans with X-League, is it being encouraged at other clubs. I read somewhere here the other day about Coventry`s popular Touch and Tag competitions, I wonder who they are aligned with.
It would seem to me that the RFL, IRL even the ITFF all need to sit down and plan a comprehensive strategy of what needs to be played and where.
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
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.
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3 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:
It seems that competitions are only likely to be viable if the RFL have a degree of oversight.
They could incorporate the existing TTRL, where the costs are (albeit probably with difficulty) already defrayed. Then try to build on that platform, particularly transitioning players from Oztag to League Tag through the community clubs.
The other option is for the RFL to secure some public funding by pitching the health and social benefits of Tag. Currently the likes of Sport England will have an image of RL consisting only of Tackle. They know such a heavy contact game will attract few participants. Hence, their expenditure is not cost-effective. The sight of players on crutches or with arms in slings will also cause those charged with improving the health of the nation to conclude funds might be better spent elsewhere.
It`s the RFL`s responsibility to change perceptions by prioritising Tag, and presenting RL to official bodies as a contact/ non-contact package with mass participation potential. At the moment, there is no evidence they possess such foresight.
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.
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On 05/02/2021 at 00:21, unapologetic pedant said:
I`m confused. These two posts are at odds with the Harrogate Knights post on the previous page. He quotes £17 for shorts, £45 for two sets of tags and gives the general impression of these costs being the decisive factor against Tag.
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.
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8 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:
A piece on the Auckland RL site says over a 1000 players will be at their KiwiTag club challenge next week, up from 700 last year despite Covid. Hard to know whether this Tag growth in RL clubs is bringing any closer a merger with NZTFI. Everybody must be aware of the potential.
I`ve started noticing some teams wearing belts to which the tags are attached. Is this a possible way round the prohibitive cost of Tag shorts?
Probably but tag shorts are only £13 each not exactly an end game in pricing especially with the costs of boots these days.
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Touch/Tag Rugby League TTRL
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
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