Rugby End of Season Presentation Night
On the 8th October, the senior men’s and women’s rugby teams got together at Cintra Hockey Complex to celebrate season 2022 with our presentation evening. It was a fantastic evening with beer supplied by our sponsor Atomic Brewing and food supplied by Briars Sports and Toco Fresh in Concord.
Awards were given across the four men’s side for Best & Fairest, Most Improved and Player’s Player (voted by the team themselves), the women’s teams for Rookie of the Year, Most Improved, Hennie Muller Training Award, Coaches Award and Players Player.
The evening finished with milestone awards, including the 200 games award for David Ananin as well as the following club awards:
- Rookie of the Year: Ridley De Lange
- Toby Crisp Award: Jack Rathborne
- Clubman of the Year: Barnzy Walkemeyer
- Women’s Rugby Club Award: Taymarra Hayward
Congratulations to all winners and all teams on the successful season.
Saturday, 16th July is Mediterranean Day at Rothwell
Come to Rothwell Park from midday this Saturday to watch the mighty Briars Rugby play against Hills in Round 10 of the Division 2 Subbies Rugby competition. This Saturday also marks our inaugural Mediterranean Day which hopes to celebrate the many cultures around the East Mediterranean, where so many of our players hail from. Whether it be the sounds of the drums or the smells of souvlaki from the BBQ it is sure to be a fantastic celebration of culture synonymise with Concord.
Briars Rugby – Ladies Day on Saturday, 23rd July
Join us for one of our favourite Days of the year, as we recognize the wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters and volunteers who support and represent Briars Rugby.
lock in the 23rd July at Rothwell Park for one of the best days on the calendar. Snap up an early bird special ticked for $40, available up until the 15th July.
Support Briars Rugby in their Round-6 Game at Rothwell this weekend
We have all of our fingers, toes and limbs crossed that we may actually be able to return to Rothwell this coming weekend.
Wherever we end up this Saturday, we hope that the 1918 will join us as we host Old Ignatians.
Last year, we managed to score an upset win in 1st Grade, taking down the ladder leaders at Rothwell in a memorable game which jump-started a run that was cut short by the lockdowns. We’re hoping for something similar this week as we look to turn our fortunes around, but we need your help.
Games start from 11:40AM so make sure you come down and support our club!
Briars Rugby – Ladies Day
Join us for one of our favourite Days of the year, as we recognize the wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters and volunteers who support and represent Briars Rugby.
lock in the 23rd July at Rothwell Park for one of the best days on the calendar. Snap up an early bird special ticked for $40, available up until the 15th July.
Match Report
21/05/2022 – Briars Rugby Match Reports – Round 2 (wet weather) vs Sydney Harlequins (Home)
3rd Grade: Third Grade put in their best performance of the season so far to kick things off on a wild and wet day at St Luke’s Park as Rothwell is still too wet to host games. Quins went ahead first by scoring a well worked backline try before Briars hit back with two outstanding tries to Michael Ly and Leslie Lee with some slick hands. As the game grew long, the briars defence stood up after wave and wave of attack. Unfortunately, on the last play of the game Quins were able to cross the line in tight and steal the game 10-14.
Colts: Colts finally got to see a solid team put together with a swathe of new players and put in a great performance against Eastern suburbs. A couple of superstar players on the Easts team was the difference as they raced out to a four try lead. The game then moved into a stalemate for large portions of the game where Briars were unlucky not to score despite some great passages. The game finished 0-38 but certainly a much improved colts performance.
2nd Grade: It was bizarre but there was a serious case of Deja vu when Quins went over early in the 2nds game through a mismatch in defence allowed their number 10 to go through. Briars hit back with a try to Luke McLachlan after some brilliant forwards play. In similar fashion to 3s, the 2s game went into a battle of attrition where neither team could score. With mere minutes on the clock Jack Klumpp put Briars further ahead with a penalty goal, 10-5. Unfortunately, (and again like 3s!) the resulting kick-off was won by Quins who pressured our line well after the siren before scoring. Their conversion would determine the winner and their winger nailed it from out wide and Briars had lost its second game of the day after the siren, 10-12.
1st Grade: With the conditions starting to really resemble a classic London day, the first-grade game got underway in windy, very wet conditions. Harlequins, through their centre combination wasted little time putting in a quick try. This was followed up by two quick tries to their number 9 through poor defensive lapses. Once more the game then become a bruising affair with Briars threatening to score on multiple occasions only to have our handling let us down. We finally did cross through fullback Lachlan Mills after some good backline movement. Unfortunately, the conditions and our lack of composure close to the line meant the score was not altered for the final 15 mins with first grade going down 5-19.
Whilst the results were not as we hoped, the improvement across all the grades was fantastic and we will use this to buoy our success against Barker this weekend in Turramurra.
Rugby Tour to the Gold Coast
Briars rugby had a successful pre-season trip to the sunny Gold Coast where we played the Currumbin Gaters in a pre-season trial match, coming away winners 29-27. An exciting trip taking in all that the Gold Coast had to offer and some fantastic weather to go with it. There is already chat of the next trip back to the sandy beaches…
Rugby Draw for Season 2022
The 2022 Rugby Season Draw is out!
Briars is returning to Division 2 and competing for the Barraclough cup once more. Come and support us at Rothwell Park, during one of our 7 home games this season.
Briars Rugby
The New South Wales Suburban Rugby Union has today announced changes to the 2022 Four ‘N Twenty NSW Subbies Rugby season, restructuring their divisions after 2 seasons affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A consolidation of the competition structure aims to help Subbies rebound after its first incomplete season since World War II, whilst also providing new opportunities for clubs looking to play against strong opposition.
As part of these changes, Briars Rugby will be competing in an expanded Division Two competition, with Briars once again competing in the Barraclough, Stockdale, Blunt, and Richardson Cup grades, as well as fielding a Colts side in the Robertson Cup.
The majority of clubs in the new-look Division Two also competed alongside Briars in the 2021 Division Three competition, joined by Hills, Lindfield, Newport, Old Barker and UNSW.
While the restructuring is not in itself a promotion, it does continue the resurgence and growth of Briars Rugby after spending the late-2010s in Division Four.
A well-earned promotion to Division Three off the back of Colts and 1st grade grand final appearances came before the 2020 season. The first season would be shortened but still saw Briars make finals appearances, before a promising first-half of last season was halted by the Greater Sydney lockdowns in late June.
Further details of the 2022 Four ‘N Twenty NSW Suburban Rugby Union season will be confirmed in the coming weeks, with significant changes expected to the previous draws and schedules.
Briars Women’s Rugby
Briars Women’s Rugby played in The Lakes Sevens by the Sea tournament in Budgewoi on Saturday against very strong competition from across the Central Coast and Newcastle region. They had their best result ever being runners up to Terrigal.
The team are now fully back into training with their next tournament being the Sydney Suburban Rugby 7s tournament on Saturday 12 March (where they also were runners up in 2021).
We are always looking for new and experienced players. They can join us at training Tues/Thurs 630pm Rothwell Park Concord or contact us via the club.