Date: Wed 13 Mar 2013

Premiership Rugby players Topsy Ojo, Jamie Gibson and Conor Gaston were at London Irish’s training ground on Tuesday to take a specialist training session after Thatcham RFC was announced as a winner of the QBE Rugby Pro competition.

Members of Thatcham RFC senior team trained with the London Irish players and community coaches courtesy of QBE, the business insurance specialist. They are one of twelve grassroots rugby clubs across the country to be awarded a training session with three Premiership Rugby players. In addition, the club received £1,000 worth of training equipment.

The prizes were awarded to clubs who best demonstrated the benefits of receiving expert guidance from top Premiership Rugby coaches and players. The judges were particularly impressed by Thatcham RFC’s growth in stature over recent seasons. The Club, founded in 1981 was on the brink of folding in 2001 but last season witnessed the club’s most successful year to date having secured back to back promotions.

The training session provided the Thatcham RFC senior team with the rare opportunity to learn from professionals and pick up specialist advice on core rugby skills and game play.

William Sewell, Chairman of Thatcham RFC, said: “The training session taken by the London Irish players and coaches was a great success as our coaches and players got the opportunity to develop and learn a number of new skills. Hopefully this will greatly benefit the squad throughout the remainder of this, and future seasons. We are very grateful to QBE for this fantastic experience and the new training equipment.”

Topsy Ojo, London Irish winger, said: “I think that QBE Rugby Pro is a fantastic initiative and it is great to be able to give something back to the grassroots game. It has been fun working with Thatcham RFC and I hope that the access to professional players and coaches during the specialist training session will inspire them further.”

QBE Rugby Pro is part of QBE’s Coaching Programme, which aims to improve the quality of rugby coaching in England at a grassroots level. For more information on the winning clubs and further details on QBE Rugby Pro visit www.QBErugby.com.