The Aurora Barbarians will introduce non-contact rugby post\nCOVID-19, says senior women\u2019s head coach Khalil Ajram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following a club review surveying parents, players, staff,\nalumni and future players, it was deemed this is a safe and necessary\nalternative for multiple age groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something we are going to establish when we return.\nWe\u2019re going to have touch leagues,\u201d Ajram said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what our club\u2019s new premise will be after. We\u2019re\nstill going to run our programs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The club is thinking of hosting contactless matches Sunday\nafternoons and evenings. For those travelling on the weekends up north, it\nmight be ideal to run the programs then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contactless rugby, via flag or touch, is one of the major\ndevelopment tools used in New Zealand and Australia for youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the inaugural season of OZTag in 1992-93 in Australia,\nthe league has grown significantly in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Currently, there are over 80,000 participants nationally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat I see happening with rugby, is the rugby 7s, which is\nthe Olympic sport, might grow in popularity. You can have seven people playing\nseven people in a way bigger area.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel non-contact rugby, will gain a lot of traction\nfollowing all of this.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Town of Aurora, Rugby Ontario and Rugby Canada have all\nbeen working on a return to play model. The Town of Aurora has avidly been\ndiscussing protocols and measures on a weekly basis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ajram says Rugby Canada has lifted their national suspension\nof the sport as of June 19. Rugby Ontario is currently creating their policies\nto initiate a return to play model as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the model is finalized and the Certificate of Insurance\n(COI) is reopened, Ajram says there will be a five-step process to return to\nplay, each step to be evaluated two to three weeks at a time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Stage One, players are not permitted to share equipment\nbut are allowed to train six feet apart. Here, there will be plenty of\nindividual training modules in place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAfter that step is done after two to three weeks, then step\ntwo is pass-ball, remaining in the social distancing area. Step three allows\nfor touch and flag rugby. Stage four will be a return to practice as we knew it\nbefore so we can have contact and stage five is full out games,\u201d Ajram\nexplained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Practices will be scheduled for approximately 45 minutes at\na time. Ajram has ordered sanitizers, cleaners and personal protective\nequipment on Amazon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Heading into what reports are indicating as \u201cthe new normal\u201d\nAjram believes organized sports will not resume until April of 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is hopeful this is not the case. From now until the winter season, Ajram is also hopeful some rugby training would be able to move indoors to a dome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Robert Belardi<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Aurora Barbarians will introduce non-contact rugby post COVID-19, says senior women\u2019s head coach Khalil Ajram. Following a club review surveying parents, players, staff, alumni and future players, it was deemed this is a safe and necessary alternative for multiple age groups. \u201cThat\u2019s something we are going to establish when we return. We\u2019re going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}