Ghana Rugby Presents Awards

The Ghana Rugby Association, in collaboration with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, yesterday presented certificates, trophies and other prizes to deserving award winners of the recent Inter-Schools Rugby Championship.

The competition, which was held at Legon from November 24 to December 7 last year, witnessed the participation of five junior division schools including Amoralf Junior High, Unity Junior High, High Street S.D.A Junior High, Abeka Motorway Junior High and Kotobabi '13' Junior high School.

Participating schools from the senior division were Christian Methodist Senior High, Ngleshie Amamfrom Senior High, Kaneshie Technical College, Labone Senior High, West Africa Senior High and the University of Ghana, Legon.

The awards ceremony was attended by some dignitaries including (Ms) Gifty Annan-Myers, President of the Ghana Rugby Association (GRA); James Charles Aryeh, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the National Sports Council (NSC), who stood in for the NSC Chief Executive, Prince Oduro-Mensah; Mark Appleby, PriceWaterHouseCoopers representative; and John Kennedy Koranteng, Technical Director of the GRA.

According to Ms Annan Myers, after the North Zone 3 Rugby Tournament in Lagos, Nigeria, the technical directorate and executives of the association saw the need for the continuity of play.

She intimated that Secretary General of the GRA was therefore requested to invite all rugby-playing schools in the Greater Accra and Central regions to hold the inter-school competitions to select two schools from each region to play in the top four in Accra.

She said because the sports calendar of the Central region could not permit those in the region to participate in the championship, they were compelled to organize the tournament only in Accra where they categorized the schools into two divisions- the juniors and seniors, and Kotobabi '13' Junior High School beat Abeka Motorway by 20-0 in the finals to win the juniors' category while the University of Ghana Legon defeated Ngleshie Amanfrom by 12-10 to win the seniors' division.

The GRA president disclosed that her outfit was planning to hold another championship very soon at the inter-regional level involving seven regions.

She added that the association was determined to extend its training programmes to the security services so that rugby would feature in the Security Service Sports Association (SESSA) games, as well as include the sport in the inter-University games.

She took the opportunity to thank Colin Dalton, a retired rugby referee in England who was in the country recently to donate some items including jerseys to the Kotobabi '13' School, as well as balls and boots to GRA.

She thanked sponsors such as S-G SSB, PriceWaterHouseCoopers, Yes Mineral Water and STA Travels for helping them to organize the championship.

“There will be more programmes for rugby this year with the visit in April of the International Rugby Board from South Africa. In June we will host a Castle Beer trophy tournament and in October the association will be invited to the United Kingdom,” she stressed.

In a speech read on behalf of the NSC boss, Mr. Oduro-Mensah said arrangements were underway to organize a rugby tournament at the Ohene Djan Stadium in order to create awareness on the sport, adding that the NSC would continue to support the association by providing some funds to it.

He thanked officials of the French Embassy who decided to train the teams and highly commended the Price water housecoopers.

By Pierre Toto