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Nathan Earle surprises Kyle Sinckler's grassroots club Battersea, telling them they have made the Gallagher Club of the Season shortlist
Harlequins winger Nathan Earle has lauded the role of grassroots rugby in England following the opening of live voting in the six-strong race to become Gallagher Rugby Club of the Season. The title partner of Premiership Rugby, Gallagher began its search last November to find local clubs who are making a significant contribution to their local community, both on and off-the-pitch.
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With a particular focus placed on how clubs demonstrated their inclusivity in providing access and opportunities across age, gender, ethnicity and ability, as well as the innovative ways in which they are increasing participation in the sport at a grassroots level, that hunt has now been whittled down to a shortlist of six.
Each of the finalists have been paired with a Gallagher Premiership Rugby club from their region and rugby fans up and down the country can now vote for their winner from Battersea Ironsides (Harlequins), Erdington (Wasps), Haringey Rhinos Ladies (London Irish), Kingsbridge (Exeter Chiefs), Longlevens (Gloucester) and Trafford MV (Sale Sharks).
With Harlequins paired with up Battersea, the grassroots outfit of England and Lions prop Kyle Sinckler, fit-again winger Earle delivered the exciting news to the club that they had made cut and would be included in the vote to decide the Gallagher Rugby Club of the Season.
“It was a shock more than anything,” said Earle to RugbyPass about the reaction on Zoom after he had told Ironsides they had made the final six. “It was a surprise to them but it was really good.
“They had a really good, productive interview and they asked me some good questions as well, stuff like what was my rugby journey growing up and how I got to where I am. I explained all that and it was nice to open up as not many people know the start to my career.”
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Ironsides were selected for the final vote due to their “strong ethos of inclusivity across the South-West London community, including financial support to remove barriers that would otherwise prevent local young people participating; growing its ladies squad from zero to more than 70 in less than four years; and its rugby-based intervention work with prisons and young offenders’ institutes, including encouraging players to get involved in coaching sessions at Wormwood Scrubs”.
For Earle, the opportunity to deliver the good news to Battersea was something he jumped at as grassroots rugby remains close to the soon-to-be 26-year-old’s heart despite being a long time in and around the pro game, having initially linked up with the Saracens academy at the age of 14 before his 2018 switch to Harlequins.
“My mum is still bookkeeper of my local club, Cranbrook,” he enthused. “She gets me down, cracks the whip, ‘You need to get down, you need to get down to see everyone’. So I still quite often to my local club. If mum cracks the whip I have got to go.
“It’s good. We have had a few professionals. Ruaridh McConnachie was Cranbrook as well and so is Harry Sloan, so we all get down every now and then when we can,” he continued, adding that maintaining the link between amateur and professional levels is most important in the current era.
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“It’s massive. As long as the professional game can still have a connection to the amateur one, rugby can only go from strength to strength. The fact is that we still have an interest in amateur rugby as every professional rugby player has been an amateur at some point.
Voting for the inaugural Gallagher Rugby Club of the Season is now open, recognising grassroots clubs that demonstrate their contribution to their community, both on and off the field. Register your vote now before 13 September. T&Cs apply.#GallagherRCOTS
— Gallagher UK (@GallagherUK) August 27, 2020
“Rather than professional football, where kids get picked up and go into academies at nine, ten, eleven years old, it’s completely different in rugby as most of your rugby is done at your local club.
“I has so much fun playing rugby. It wasn’t serious too soon. I was able to enjoy it. I still enjoy my rugby but it was just me and my friends messing around on a Sunday morning rather than it becoming a job because as soon as its starts getting serious around 15, 16 years old in an academy, you have to make those sacrifices whereas before then it’s just you and your mates messing around on a Sunday.”
* All of the Gallagher Rugby Club of the Season finalists have received a Gilbert training bundle worth £1,000 and will enjoy an exclusive ‘Train with your Heroes’ session, as well as a free business consultancy session delivered by Gallagher’s risk management and insurance specialists when safety conditions allow. The voting to decide the overall winner has now gone live (click here) and the voting lines will close on September 13.
Comments on RugbyPass
He was in such great form. Sad for him but only a short term injury and it will be great to see him back for the finals.
1 Go to commentsAfter their 5/0 start, I had the Crusaders to finish Top 4 only…they lost the plot in Perth but will reload and back themselves vs 4th placed Rebels…
3 Go to commentsBoth nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world. I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen. I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
3 Go to commentsIt will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
3 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
3 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
36 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
3 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
3 Go to comments