Looking for a fun new way to increase your fitness levels, add some social time to your life or to try a new exciting sport? Come along and give Touch a go!

Percy Park Pirates are running 5 weeks of womens or mens only try touch rugby sessions suitable for anyone aged 14yrs and over. No experience is necessary as all the basics will be covered during the sessions with easy skill drills and games. Touch is a really fun and sociable way to increase your activity levels and you won’t even realise how active you are as you’ll be too busy learning a new game and enjoying the session. Social touch can be played at any pace making it great for those who currently have low activity levels or are recovering from an injury.

This weekend saw 5 members of Percy Park Pirates attend the All England Training camp in Welbeck down near Loughborough for the final stages of their European Touch Championships campaign. The final squads of 16 players will be announced in the next week and we wish our players the best of luck on being selected.

Representing the women are Lesley McCallion and Aimee Findlay who hoping to make the final 16 of the England Women's 35s. Then we have Ian Moody and Julian Wilson who are waiting to hear of selection for the England Mens 45s squad. Paul Ainscough, usually a player within the M45s but currectly recovering from injury, has taken on the mantle of the M45s assistant coach, a guaranteed representative from Pirates.

Pirates are also hopeful for some of their youth players to make the England Junior Squads later in the year aiming to play in the Junior Touch Championships held in Stirling, Scotland during August.

Percy Park Pirates were victorious in taking home the silverware at the Touch Northern Cup held at Percy Park RFC on Saturday 24th March. The last time they got their hands on the silverware was at the inaugural tournment in 2016.

The Pirates team consisted of regular players Will Vickery, Christina Finlay, Lesley McCallion, Aimee Findlay, Ian Moody, Richard Moody and Gerard Hargreaves while welcoming 5 new players to the competitive team; Aisling O'Loghlen, Hester Williams, Paul Black, Dan McQuoid and Anthony Nolan. There were also a number of players from the Pirates in the Prickly Beards team; Anna Reeves, Jenny Johnstone, Erica Robertson, Tony Hegarty, Seamus McCallion, Adam Downie and Paul Hillcoat. Prickly Beards were a barbarian style team giving more chances for players to be scouted for the North East Raiders.

7 teams entered this year and the format was a round robin to give all teams the best amount of game time. The final standings looked like this:

The Northern Cup is the North East's touch tournament held at Percy Park RFC every year by Erica Robertson and Paul Ainscough from Pirates. The aim of the tournament is to help touch teams in the north east network and develop their playing and refereeing standards as well as being a scouting opportunity for North Easy Radiers which is the county eqivilent for Touch.

Check out the photos here.