Broughton Rugby Football Club have received their accreditation from the RFU after nearly folding as a club last season.
The club in Salford has grown enormously over the past 12 months. Since the introduction of Brian Collier to the management team of the first XV, the side put in some strong performances at the back end of last season.
After this uprising, the side have grown into their own this season and are currently third in their division having only been defeated once this season. Chairman of the club, Craig Barnes, spoke highly of Collier and the impact he has had on the side.
Craig said: “He has basically took us from nowhere to where we are now…. we are third in the league we have lost one game all season…. compared to where we where 12 months ago is absolutely amazing, the lads have put an absolute shift in to turn the club around with a lot of help from the coach and the committee.”
Barnes spoke about how the club lost its credit a few years ago after a few tough seasons: “When I first joined eight or nine years ago the club was RFU accredited, but then over the past eight or nine years, the club took a massive downfall.
“We lost the accreditation and everything just fell away really.”
Barnes spoke about the delight over getting the credit back and the biggest obstacles they faced to gain back their accreditation two weeks ago: “We took it upon ourselves this year, a couple of the committee members to go and try and get the accreditation back… it was a massive boost the club needed.
“The morale was big, we have always had a tight-knit group but there were only eight or nine, over the last twelve months we turned that to having 20 or 30 lads, who are really involved and want to be involved in the club.”
Jack, a loosehead prop for the side, spoke about how tight-knit the group is since the introduction of Collier and how the atmosphere at the club is much different from any other club he has played with,].
Jack said: “It’s family-based, the boys are brothers, it’s not just a group of lads it’s brothers that get together during the week as well as at training.
“We are all together for each other.
“One of the lads who just moved over from Spain to play with the club and at training the other week his bike got stolen, so we all clubbed together as boys and bought him a brand new bike… he has ended up with three in the past week.”
It is clear that Broughton Rugby Club has been a revamped side since the appointment of head coach Collier and the coach spoke about how things have changed since he took the lead.
Collier said: “We have more players, when I first came we had six or seven training, regularly now we can get 26, 28 training.
“We now have a second team out, which is really important for us, as it means that everyone who comes out training can get a game of rugby.”
Collier had his say on how important the accreditation has been for the side: “To be recognised is massive for us, it opens up a lot of doors in regarding funding and just helps things along massively.”
Collier spoke about the hard work of the side and how it shows the improvements they made coming from the brink of relegation last season to being third in the table now. Collier originally came to the club to bring some structure in and did not have any intention of getting back into rugby coaching, but he described it as a breath of fresh air and has really left his mark on the side.
Image Credit: Rene Mcintosh Madison Radford
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