Land Rover Premiership Cup 2019

By Mark Stevens
22/10/19

Youngsters from Saltash and Penzance-Newlyn will represent Exeter Chiefs at the 2020 Premiership Rugby Final next June after featuring in another hugely successful Land Rover Premiership Cup competition.

Put on by all 12 top-flight clubs during the course of the current season, the Land Rover Premiership Cup has seen more than 90,000 children take part to date and continues to grow, providing developmental experience for young players to excel in a professionally run environment.

And this year proved no exception here in Devon as the Chiefs Community teams welcomed over 600 children, across 32 different teams, to take part in the exciting Under-11 and Under-12 grassroots developmental festival, which took place for the first time at Exeter Athletic RFC.

In what was a fun-filled, yet highly competitive day of action, organisers praised the contribution of all players who not only displayed fantastic resolve, but also demonstrated the core values of the game throughout.

"This is my fourth Land Rover Premiership Rugby Cup and I am consistently amazed at the standard of rugby that is displayed by the youngsters," said Chiefs Community Development Manager, Aron Struminski.

"The quality of rugby is a real testament to the hard work of all of the club coaches that have developed the children to put on such a good display of rugby. Personally, I see the Land Rover Premiership Rugby Cup as a celebration of junior rugby, played in such good spirit, and with the values of the sport at the forefront, serving as a good reminder as to why we love the game."

Participating players at the festival also had the opportunity to meet a number of the Chiefs first-team squad, including Stuart Townsend, James Kenny, Joe Parker-Cook and Arthur Relton, who took time out of their schedule to watch the young teams as well as offer some coaching tips between games.

"Rugby at this level is about expressing yourself," said Townsend. “The competition’s important, but at this level you don’t want to focus too much on the competition; you want to start performing well and recognising that performance, rather than getting a result at the end of it. Everyone should be enjoying themselves, getting to know other people and be building relationships."