Caroline 'Betty' Meenan: Portadown RFC Girls' Youth Coach
- I started off volunteering at Portadown RFC when I joined the senior ladies' team. I played and integral part in establishing the team.
- I currently coach 2 sessions a week and take the girls to blitzes every 2-3 weeks on a Sunday.
- Off the pitch, I spend a lot of time recruiting for the girls, obtaining sponsorship, recruiting new volunteers to help run the teams and organising joint training sessions with other local clubs.
Youth Rep on Ulster Women and Girls' Committee
- Pre-season, I work with Ulster development officers to create the blitz schedule for the season. I need to ensure the girls are getting enough game time and clubs are given opportunity to host.
- I have been working with a few clubs locally, helping them establish their girls' sections and sharing my experiences/lessons learned with them.
- Prior to each blitz, I work with the hosting club to ensure the schedule of games is in place and they have enough support and volunteers to execute the event successfully.
- Blitz day is always organised chaos at the start, with over 200 girls attending. I always support the host club to help the games start on time and ensure clubs follow the match schedule for the day.
- I am currently enrolled in the trial referee programme - at every blitz I spend the match time refereeing the games. This lets me get a bit of exercise and helps with my ref development. We always have 1 or 2 ‘difficult’ games but that makes the day more interesting.
- When committees meet, I ensure I deliver a full and detailed update of the progress over the last month in the girls game. Key issues and successes are discussed equally. We spend a significant amount of time discussing the progression of the women and girls' game in Ulster and Ireland.
Why I got involved in volunteering
My sporting career started out on the ballroom dancefloor, covered in fake tan and glitter. I travelled up and down the country with my mum and nanny, I was even Northern Ireland champion and didn’t even know what a rugby ball was. I then developed a love for hockey, captaining my school team (Foyle College) and continuing to play when I moved to Manchester for University. I began to love watching rugby in school as our boys team was very successful. At Uni, I loved when the Six Nations was on because I worked in an Irish bar and it was always packed and really good craic, but I never dreamed I would play the sport.
I moved to Lurgan when I was 30 to work in Almac, I tried to keep playing hockey but the younger girls were far too fast for me to keep up. It was time to admit I was too old ! I tried a few different gyms and bootcamps but I missed team sport. My friend Kellie saw an ad on facebook from Portadown RFC saying they wanted to set up a ladies' team, so off we went to give it a try. We were both so anxious on the first night heading to Chambers park, but after the first 10mins of training, we were hooked. Rugby is most definitely a game for all ages, shapes, sizes and abilities. There is a place for everyone one on the field, I found mine in the second row.
Kellie and I worked alongside Clive Bowles to do everything we could to recruit, recruit, recruit and establish the team. Making connections with Dungannon, we entered a joint team for the 2017/18 season. The joint senior team had a great season together, especially as most of the team were all new to the sport. Seeing the team reach the regenerate cup final, was a huge reward for me. All of the hard work on the pitch and off the pitch establishing the team was worth it.
Seeing the success of the ladies and getting an insight into boys youth rugby at Portadown RFC, I decided to establish the girls' youth section. For the first season, the girls didn’t play any competitive rugby, as I was splitting my time across the youth and senior team.
A tibial plateau fracture in the cup final (thanks Omagh!) put my playing career to and end this gave me the extra time to develop off the pitch as a coach and manager. I applied for the IRFU Sprit of Leadership programme (after a nudge from Eliza Downey at Ulster Rugby) and never looked back. I met so many amazing people from across Ireland; every month we would share our experiences with each other and learn so much. This course has been invaluable to me and I would highly recommend it. The group members are all still in contact and we regularly ask each other for help and support as well as setting up tours and friendly games across the country.
I implemented the skills and knowledge gained on the Spirit programme into my volunteer role at Portadown. I applied and successfully executed completed the IRFU 'Give It A Try' programme, growing our numbers up to 40+. The Portadown Bluechicks then set our sights on competitive rugby.
The team is now represented in all age categories within girls rugby, taking part in every blitz. I’m so proud of everything the team and I have achieved, especially completing a cross-community game of three halves programme and playing at half-time at Kingspan Stadium and Energia Park.
I have taken up refereeing as a personal challenge. I have a love/hate relationship with it, however the love always comes out on top. It’s early days in the programme but hopefully I will progress.
An average weekend for me starts on a Friday night, planning Saturday’s session and packing the car for the weekend ahead. Saturday starts at 8.45am, setting out the pitch waiting for the Bluechicks to arrive. After the session, I head off to referee a youth boys' game at 11am. I then travel to wherever the Portadown senior men 3’s team are playing to watch my other half play. Most of the time, they rope me in to running the line for them as well - this is great for my referee development. After dinner and a few drinks in the clubhouse, it’s home ready for round 2 the next day. We are normally on the road from 10am travelling anywhere from Derry to Virginia with the Bluechicks,. It’s a non-stop day filled with fun, stress and laughter. We usually get home around 4 or 5pm, when it’s time to get ready for work on a Monday. Most people would read this and think, "why bother?" However this has become the normal for us during the season, and I wouldn’t change it!
