Nearly 600 mini rugby players and over 1000 people in total descended on Belmont for the annual CIYMS Mini Rugby Festival on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 March 2010 with the host club CIYMS being joined by 10 other clubs namely Academy, Ards, Ballyclare, Ballymena, Bangor, Cooke, Donaghadee, Instonians, Lisburn and Malone.
There was a pink theme to the weekend festival with all CIYMS players wearing pink socks, all games played with pink rugby balls, the corner flags pink and even the refs entered into the spirit wearing pink rugby shirts to officiate.
This was all to raise awareness for all forms of cancer including breast cancer and proceeds from the tuck shop for the kids and hot drinks and tray bakes for the adults helped raise £1,618 for the festival’s nominated charity McMillan Cancer Research. With their own cash collections during the 2 days mini rugby fun for the kids swelling the overall amount raised to over £2,300 CIYMS Mini Rugby Convenor, Keith O’Donnell was delighted with the response, “All the CIYMS kids entered into the spirit of the pink theme and the U10’s who came up with the idea, along with their head coach Stuart McKnight, even dyed their hair pink for the occasion.”
The sun shone for both days of the festival and all the players, coaches and supporters enjoyed the event with the only injury over the whole weekend coming in the last game when Tom Trinder from CIYMS U12’s arrived back from his drum exam to last just two minutes over their match against Cooke before suffering a hairline fracture to his wrist. Tom will be back playing in 3 weeks in time for the CIYMS end of season P7 tour to Scotland and he was expertly looked after by the paramedical team on duty led by Davy Mitchell and also the doctors on standby. Fortunately this was the only time the medical cover was required over the 2 days rugby.
In line with all festivals in Ulster this year here are no longer any winners and losers and no semi-finals , finals or trophies but this directive does not apply in Scotland so CIYMS P7’s will be competing for a trophy in early May. As one of the CIYMS P7 coaches, Alastair McCrossan, said, “Isn’t it ironic that we have to go to Scotland to try to win? Scotland a country that never wins anything ! “
Over the weekend Ulster players Clinton Schifcofske , Ed O’Donoghue and Dan Tuohy patiently signed autographs for most of the kids and Ulster coach Brian McLaughlin was there on the Sunday to watch the U11 and U12 events and gave a pep talk to the CIYMS U12’s before their game with local rivals Cooke.
The festival was a great success and raised the bar from last year’s inaugural event organised by the previous Minis convenor Ian Nelson and driven by the likes of Steve Rooney. Commented on this festival organiser Keith O’Donnell said, “Once our PRO David Peden had secured £1,100 of sponsorship we met as a festival committee every week to plan how best to use these resources and as usual you always find people who work tirelessly to make things happen. Claire McGonigle and Joanne Gribben on the catering side and Paul Nelson and particularly Richie Weir on the facilities side put in monumental effort with their teams to help things flow without a hitch over the 2 days.”
There were a lot of tired but happy boys after the Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon events who are probably already looking forward to next year’s festival fun. Fun was the main point of the festival along with the funds raised for a worthy cause as cancer which sadly affects almost every family in Northern Ireland in one way or another.
