Scottish Rugby has opened nominations for the annual domestic game awards, focusing on the on and off-field efforts of clubs and schools across Scotland over the course of the last year.

The 2023 Community Recognition Awards aim to celebrate and recognise the efforts of players, coaches, match officials and volunteers from the domestic game.

The format includes six award categories, which will be awarded in each of the five regions – Caledonia Midlands, Caledonia North, East, Glasgow North and Glasgow South.

The award categories are:

• Volunteer of the Season in Youth rugby sponsored by inspiresport, 
• Volunteer of the Season in Schools rugby sponsored by inspiresport 
• Volunteer of the Season in Adult rugby sponsored by Tennent’s Lager
• Young Person’s Award sponsored by inspiresport
• Community Club of the Season sponsored by Tennent’s Lager
• Community Referee of the Season

An additional award will be presented to the Glasgow South region, The Adam Gray Memorial Award. 

The applications for making a nomination, plus the terms and conditions can be found on our website, linked below.

Applications close at midnight on 31 January 2023.

The Advanced Coaching programme is taking applications for coaches who have already completed the Aspiring Coaching Programme and are looking for the next step in their development.

The programme aims to equip coaches with practical coaching skills and tools to enhance their coaching abilities and the player experience. The course has been designed to cater for coaches delivering across the Adult Male, Adult Female, Youth Male and Youth Female areas of the game in order to effectively tailor the learning for each coaching environment.

Successful applicants will be allocated a Scottish Rugby Educator for the duration of the programme who will undertake practical and video observations, provide 1-to-1 support and develop coaches with open dialog throughout the course.  

To find out more and apply, click on the link below.

Applications close on 3 January 2023.

Blazin’ Fiddles and The Scottish Folk Orchestra featuring Nicola Benedetti will be re-releasing their charity single ‘Doddie’s Dream’. 

The single, which reached Number 9 in the official charts in March 2021 will be available to buy & download on Friday 12 March 2021 with all proceeds going to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. 

The band are asking for support in promoting this across the rugby community in Scotland. Bruce MacGregor who wrote “Doddie’s Dream” explained: “We’re going to give it one big heave and see what we can do to try to get it into the Top 40 for Christmas.” 

The single is available to pre-order on iTunes and pre-save on Spotify.

We would like to notify all clubs and schools that the Rugby Development department will shutdown for Christmas at 5pm on Friday 23 December 2023 and reopen at 9am on Wednesday 4 January 2023.

During this time, inboxes and telephone lines will not be monitored.If your club or school has an urgent enquiry, please email rugbydevelopmentadmin@sru.org.uk  and mark your correspondence as urgent. A member of the team will endeavour to respond as soon as possible.       

Normally at this time of the year, Midlothian Walking Rugby group would be making plans on how they will use the weekly training fees they’ve saved up for a team evening out.

But for a second year running, the group decided to put their collection towards supporting their local community by making a £500 donation to the Midlothian Foodbank, which was matched by their shirt sponsor, 99 Ventures.