Club vs. County: no contest?

A few of you were loyally suggesting tonight that you wanted to put your club before county or region this season. While that is all very noble, team spirited and so on its worth considering a few points before making the selfless sacrifice.

1. There are no clashes between any county training or match days and anything the club is doing. By taking part in county activities you will miss nothing at club level - not least because all you coaches are, or are likely to be, involved with the county teams so there will be nothing going on at the club on county days!
   
2. Equally with the Region there will only club training on regional days as there will be virtually no-one to play even if we wanted to. Any matches that may be will be inter-county games, like the tournament in Wimbledon last season. So again by going to region you miss nothing at club level.
   
3. Maybe half of last year's county squad are now too old- and not far off a fifth of all the U17s in the county are at Letchworth. So by these numbers alone you need not be concerned about playing in a squad dominated by girls from other clubs - in fact the boot will be firmlyon the other foot
   
4. The awesome performances in training over the past couple of Wednesdays (especially tonight) also means that frankly any or all of you are quite capable of getting selected by county!
   
5. County trials is by way of a "tournament" and you will be playing as Letchworth. Not only will this be a good dry run for Beckenham, but it will be a great opportunity to play other Herts teams, espcially those who do not currently appear on the fixture list.
   
6. Your involvement at county or region means you will play at a higher level, will work with some different coaches, and will come back better players. That clearly happened with those who played at county and regional level last year. And if you are better players the club obviously benefits!
   
7. We also have targets, as a team and club, which are performance related and county/regional selection is a ley part of that. Or in other words the club (and therefore the team) has a major stake in getting as many of you into the county and regional teams as possible!
   
8. If you miss out trialling this year you will risk missing out next year as well. Due to age band changes this season's squads will run on more or less unchanged into next season.

So if you were thinking of not going to county or regional trials this year - think again! In the end we want you to play county and regional rugby. You are ALL quite capable of making that step up, and the club (and you) will benefit far more by your taking part in representative rugby than it ever could will if you stayed away.