For Renfrewshire development officer, Lindsey Smith, the programme will allow rugby to grow across every age group in secondary school and will help develop the area of the game that is closest to her heart, women’s rugby.

At the launch of the programme at Paisley Grammar School this week Lindsey spoke about her aims for developing rugby in Renfrewshire and how the Schools of Rugby will have a positive impact on this growth.

She said: “The main aim of being a development officer, for me, is to bring rugby into the schools and then, once this foundation has been established, encouraging those players to invest in their local club.

“At Paisley Grammar School we have a good number of pupils playing rugby, so as well as continuing to grow the numbers that we have playing, moving forward we want to make the game more competitive by introducing more matches and tournaments to compete in.

“The Schools of Rugby are a perfect way to progress with these aims and Paisley Grammar School is delighted to have been selected.

“Ultimately, through the programme we would like to have a team at every age group. However, to start with, we will establish teams over two years. So, first and second years will be one team and so on. In doing this we will be able create a clear pathway for those pupils who want to be involved with and develop their rugby throughout their time at secondary school.

“So far in Renfrewshire, in terms of girl’s rugby, I have run a series of development days for S1 up to S6 giving girls a taster of the game. At one of these days last year we managed to get 90 players along, two of whom got selected for Scotland women under-18s shortly after they had played rugby at this event for the first time. Furthermore two other girls have been selected for Scotland women under-20s off the back of these events.

“Once again Schools of Rugby has introduced more girls to the game and I hope to use Scotland Women as role models for these youngsters, encouraging them to play, get fit and consider getting involved with clubs.

“Finally, like I said before, the more games and training we can provide for the girls the better and I definitely think Schools of Rugby will help take forward these opportunities.”