The Rugby Football League are following on from their success in the inaugural Wheelchair Tag Rugby League World Cup with the inception of a new high performance group aimed at providing the best possible development for potential international players.

The Wheelchair Tag Rugby League Development Group will hold once monthly training sessions at their Hopwood Hall base under the watchful eye of Head Coach Phil Roberts and will benefit from added support in a number of areas including medical, sports science, nutritional and ancillary support. Athletes personal development will then be monitored between meetings using the sport plan programme.

The newly formed group will feature all 8 players who travelled to Sydney for last years World Cup and many other players, some of whom have recently just started playing the game but according to England Coach Phil Roberts have the potential to feature in the next World Cup.

The first session will be held at Hopwood Halls Middleton Campus and will feature a battery of fitness tests specific to wheelchair athletes as well as a range of skills.

Wheelchair tag Rugby League remains a relatively new sport but thanks to the success of the World Cup winning squad, new clubs are forming all over the country, introducing new players to the game.

The Wheelchair tag Group would like to invite members of the press to this, our first training session, to see the squad put through their paces and gain an insight into the fitness and skill levels required to play this unique sport at the top level.

In conjunction to this launch, in order to support the large numbers of new clubs forming, The RFL are holding a coaching and administrators development day.

Many new coaches are required to support the number of new clubs and we would like to invite coaches of all backgrounds to attend a coaching workshop and see the sport in action. Members of the RFLs coaching team will be on hand to deliver a workshop around the coaching process, which should prove interesting for coaches new or old. This will be followed by a question and answers workshop with England Coach Phil Roberts around the specific skills of Wheelchair tag Rugby and about coaches athletes with disabilities. Workshops will run from 10.30am until 1.00pm on Sunday 31st May where attendees will be invited to watch the guys in action. Any wishing to attend this session, or for more details, please email Graham Davey at graham.davey@rfl.uk.com

In conjunction with the coaches workshop, we are also holding an administrators day to support the new and existing clubs. This will feature workshops around the day to day running of a club, how to staff and find funding for new clubs and how to obtain the clubmark status. Workshops for administrators, on Sunday 31st May, will commence at 1.30pm and finish at 3.30pm. Anyone wishing to attend this workshop or for more information please email Donna Sladdin at donna.sladdin@rfl.uk.com