CONTACT rugby is being introduced for the first time in over a decade at Luctonian's Mortimer Park as the women's game continues to grow.

More than 20 girls aged between 11 and 15 years old turned up for an initial taster session at the club recently ran by club coaches, first team players and local RFU Community Coach Pat Hill.

The girls were put through their paces in the first of what is scheduled to become regular sessions moving forwards.

The club aim to get under-13 and under-15 contact sides up and running for the start of the 2018-19 rugby season.

Luctonians Junior Chairman Dave Curd added: "It has been our aim for a while now to get girls contact rugby up and running at the club.

"It has taken some time to get the girls playing the full version of the game in local schools, but with our community coaching programme focusing on this, alongside the RFU’s enhanced efforts on increasing girls participation numbers within the game, we have got many of the local secondary schools undertaking in some form of activity and this has spiked the interest of those girls."

Mortimer Park also hosted the first tournament of the season for the Midlands Ladies Touch League.

The competition saw sides from Ledbury and Ross-on-Wye, as well as two Luctonians teams, join six other clubs in attendance, in a ten team tournament that really showcased the shortened, speedier version of the game.

Pershore were the overall winners of the event.

Luctonians Captain Sarah Lamonby was delighted with the tournament.

She said: "This is the first time we have managed to get two sides out in any season, since playing in the Midlands League.

"Whilst our results were a little mixed today, a lot of our players were only experiencing tournament rugby for the first time, and from a wider perspective it was just fantastic to see so many ladies teams in attendance at the tournament.

"It is the biggest one the league has known since it started and we are really looking forward to the next one."

The Herefordshire sides will all be in action again at the next tournament in the series, on Sunday at Berry Hill RFC in Gloucestershire.