Credit: Touch Luxembourg
Rugby Club Luxembourg (RCL) has announced that Luxembourg’s national touch rugby team is preparing to compete at the 2024 Touch Rugby World Cup, in Nottingham, England in July 2024.
Luxembourg will be competing against 20 nations for the title of world champion in the men's 30 division, including teams from Australia, England, New Zealand, France, Wales, South Africa and Ireland.
Touch rugby is a sport where men and women play at an elite (open) level, but also in several senior age divisions at 30, 35 and over 55 years.
More than 3,500 players from over 40 countries will participate in this World Cup. Bigger in terms of players and matches than any of the professional rugby code's world cups.
To compete at this elite level, RCL noted that Touch Luxembourg, the national association for Touch Rugby in Luxembourg, has hired Nickolas Matenga from New Zealand to coach the team over the last two years.
Having a coach of Nick's quality also brings knowledge of elite sport to the Luxembourg touch rugby community, as well as expertise on how to develop the sport of touch rugby in the Grand Duchy for the global stage. His ideas supported the transfer of knowledge, which is already inspiring senior and junior club players across Luxembourg's two Touch clubs - RCL Lightning and Terre Rouges Touch, RCL added.
The team’s reported goal is to make touch rugby the largest mixed-team participation sport in Luxembourg. Touch rugby is unique in that it is played in a mixed format at the international level. 60% of the team’s junior players in Luxembourg are girls, RCL added, and many of them now moved on to playing for the senior mixed club teams.
