Rugby Club Issue 55 | Page 91

nantyffyllon Thomas and Ajay Sharma which makes us stronger than we have been for many a year.” sure it will become a very popular venue in the upper Llynfi valley.” Youth Ambitions “Youth rugby is enormously important to us and it only shows with the success of both our senior teams this year, that to be successful you have to run a youth side, also it must be fed by a strong junior section, I’m sure that our club is the envy of all the others in the district. It has been hard work and special mentions must go to brothers Mathew and Geraint Williams who have run our youth from the beginning, till nowadays, and to Archie our Head Youth Coach, who have seen us evolve from a side who drove around picking players off the street to field a team and only winning one or two games a season, to now becoming one of the top youth teams in Wales, a fantastic achievement.” “On field we have to gain promotion to at least Division One, we have as I said some fantastic talent coming through our ranks and our shop window will always be our first fifteen and if we want to hold on to these youngsters and stop the poaching I mentioned earlier then this has to be our goal. Otherwise all the effort and commitment put in to develop these players will be wasted as other clubs will see the benefit of all our hard work. Off field we have a massive project to manage and make sure our COMMUNITY CLUB becomes exactly that, and we will be looking to employ someone to make sure that the facility incorporates the whole valley.”   Potential “There is immense talent throughout the youth and lower age groups but I’m not going to mention individuals (of whom I’m sure four of them will make it to regional level) purely because the parasites from higher level clubs will come in and sweet talk players to move and then not give them the game time they need to improve to make it at the highest level. We have had it for the past couple of seasons and it galls me when the so called amateur clubs offer payment to poach our quality players. Don’t get me wrong, no one would be more proud than myself to see a Nanty prodigy playing Premiership level or higher and we would send them with our blessing, but when a division two side poach your players with money it’s hard to bear.” Community “I know lots of other clubs say this, but we truly are the Heart of the Nantyffyllon community, and you can be assured that the new development will be used by the whole of the community, young and old. We currently have a choir, skittles teams, football teams, cricket teams, dart and pool teams as well as the 12 rugby teams all using our club as a base and we are committed to our partnerships with local schools and clubs to provide a first class venue for all types of activities. We are providing a fitness suite, a boxing gym and an Indoor barn in the new facility and I’m “I know lots of other clubs say this, but we truly are the Heart of the Nantyffyllon community.” www.pitchero.com/clubs/nantyffyllonrfc - Twitter : @NantyRFC www.sportip.biz 91