City youth will have a chance to learn and play a growing sport this spring when the Owen Sound Rugby Club officially gets underway.

Led by club president Darcy Werger – head coach and founder of the St. Mary’s Mustangs varsity girls rugby team – the league will run from mid-May until August this year.

Owen Sound operated as a satellite division of the Bruce County Rugby Club for the last two years.

“We have a group of pretty enthusiastic parents, teachers and community members that want to see rugby grow and develop in this area. The timing is right, and the interest has been there to help build the program at this moment,” said club secretary Katie Douglas.

Under-7 and Under-9 age groups will play a non-contact flag rugby game with one-to-two practice sessions a week. The teams will compete in three-to-four tournaments (rugby festivals) throughout the season.

“Rugby is a really social game. It’s a game you can play well into your later adulthood and stick with people you’ve met,” Douglas said.

There are a growing number of rugby festivals popping up throughout the province, including those locally organized. The club’s website says it plans to get into the Bruce County Rugby Festival, Georgian Bay Rugby Festival and the Fergus Highlanders Rugby Festival.

“It’s one day rather than consistently having to travel every weekend,” Douglas said. “It’s a little bit more casual, a little bit more recreational in that sense.”

The Under-11 age group will be introduced to the hitting and contact element of the sport through a slightly modified game. Players will begin to learn how to tackle, ruck, scrum and line-out in a modified, limited, and controlled setting. Rules will dictate all tackling must be below the waist.

“They learn from a very young age how to engage in contact safely,” Douglas said. “The statistics actually show there is no more significant risk to playing rugby than there is to playing any other youth sport . . . getting them in early and teaching them how to do it the right way is really important.”

Outside of the big-city centres minor rugby programs are few-and-far-between in Ontario. A number of athletes, especially in rural areas, pick the game up in high school where it’s full contact, and they could be matched up against someone who has played for years.

“That’s common across Ontario and even across Canada,” said Douglas. “We want to support that high school level and give them kids that already know the game . . . they know the basics.”

The Under-13 teams will begin to add more structure to the game as coaches introduce the rugby’s different positions (prop, lock, winger etc.). The Under-13 players will experience contested scrums and fully contested rucks. All tackles will be below the shoulders within the game in the Under-13 age group. There will be weekly mini-tournaments, tentatively scheduled for Sunday morning, as well as one-to-two practices a week.

The most senior age group, for now, will be the Under-15 classification. Beginners are still welcome, says the league website, as the club plans to always reinforce the basics at each level of play.

At the Under-15 level games will be played under formal rules and conditions as players start to develop the skills and strategies of the game at each position. The Under-15 teams will play weekly games while practicing once or twice every week.

Douglas said the club has a long-term vision of including a senior rugby team for players who have graduated from the high school level and still want to play locally.

Samantha Schmalz will serve as the club’s vice president. The former St. Mary’s student played rugby in high school and went on to compete with the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks where she won team awards for Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player during her career. She then played for Team Ontario’s Under-23 squad and suited up for the UC Vipers while attending the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

Erika Werger rounds out the current club executive as treasurer. She is a teacher at Notre Dame Catholic School in Owen Sound and is involved in coaching and organizing a number of local minor sports. She played high school rugby in Walkerton.

Practices will take place at Notre Dame Catholic School in Owen Sound on Wednesday evenings.

The club has been officially registered with Rugby Ontario, the provincial governing body responsible for the organization of rugby and a member of Rugby Canada.

An information and registration booth will be set during Owen Sound’s Summer Sport Registration nights Feb. 19 and Feb. 27 at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre.

Online registration will be available on Feb. 19, the club’s website is www.owensoundrugby.com