Very much like the sound of that. Rugby needs more programs such as this to grow the game, there are whole communities that just consider rugby a posh white man's sport which is not only not accurate but stops a lot of possible players coming into the game.fivepointer wrote:Some interesting background on Cheick Kone
Kone has progressed from Warriors’ Diploma in Sporting Excellence programme at Stourport HS & Sixth Form College and club rugby at Wolverhampton into the Senior Academy at Sixways but his route into rugby has been anything but conventional.
He was born and raised in the Ivory Coast, spent time in Bologna in Italy before his family re-located to Wolverhampton.
Kone took up rugby only two years ago when Matt Jones, Warriors’ Academy Outreach Coach, spotted him as part of the Project Rugby programme.
Project Rugby is an initiative between Premiership Rugby and England Rugby to increase participation in rugby by people from traditionally under-represented groups – including BAME (Black Asian & Minority Ethnic people).
Thanks to the work of Warriors Community Foundation – the club’s charity arm – Jones has been able to carry out ground-breaking work in introducing rugby to inner city areas in Wolverhampton and the Black Country where the sport is rarely played.
Kone is the first player in England to progress from Project Rugby to the Senior Academy of a Gallagher Premiership club.
I've seen it in Leicester where the Carribbean community are not turned on to rugby but you go to the athletics tracks at Saffron Lane or Loughborough and there's some well stacked guys competing in sprints. Could have been prime backs material. I know Tigers are trying to do more to reach out and I'm sure most other clubs are as well but it should have been done a decade ago. The Obano documentary only highlights this.