Rugby India hails successful virtual TRY Series 2020

The Rugby India online rugby competition, called the TRY Series 2020, has been successful according to Rugby India CEO Nasser Hussain. The series final is on May 24th with the 32 teams whittled down to the final two.

What is the Rugby India TRY Series?

The online virtual tournament has run for two weeks, hosted on the Rugby India social media platforms and started with 32 actual club rugby teams from India, representing 15 states. Voters could vote on the FB page, Instagram or Twitter to determine the results of the matches.

The 80th and final game on Sunday 24th May sees Kerala Rugby Warriors take on Young Rugby Club (YRC).

Rugby India CEO Nasser Hussain told Asia Rugby: “We thought to ourselves what is it that players and followers of Rugby are missing the most during this period. and what is it that we can do to recreate that experience for them, while adhering to the stay at home and social distancing protocols.”

Over the course of the tournament up to the final, a total of 400,000+ votes have been cast with 1.3 million impressions on the three social media platforms.

Hussain added “The response received has been overwhelming and the sheer volume of numbers is something that we had not imagined. With a bulk of the matches still to be played, we foresee this interest growing further and more and more Votes being cast as we get into the business end of the tournament.”

Rugby India TRY Series 2021

Although we hope actual rugby will have resumed by 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic would have passed, Rugby India may run the online rugby tournament again in 2021 based on the success of this year’s series.

The Rugby India CEO saying “Having received such a positive response within the first few days of launching, we see potential in building upon this property for the future. We have already initiated discussions around the possibility of the TRY Series being a regular feature on our calendar, amongst other events.”

Rugby in India

Earlier in 2020, a Get Into Rugby (GIR) Statistic report 2019 ranked India as top of the global rankings for the World Rugby’s development program with 214,053 new rugby participants. GIR was introduced in India in 2013 and the latest reports showed that:

• The total numbers of Male Players have grown from 61,194 in 2016 to 112,712 in 2019.  That represents an 85% increase over 3 years.
• The total numbers of Female Players have grown from 42,032 in 2016 to 101,341 in 2019. This represents a 141 % increase over the last 3 years.

In addition, the Women’s National Indian rugby team claimed their first international test match XVs win in 2019, beating Singapore in the Asia Rugby Women’s Championship Division 1, 21-19.

The coaching team of the national team in 2019 comprised of a number of well-known South African coaches including former Springbok Naas Botha.

In 2020, during COVID-19, Rugby India has also started its Instagram Live Series on April 20th 2020 and they have had a great selection of Indian rugby and international guests on the show.

More Asian rugby news

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• Steven Rodaway: Singapore Sevens GM.
• Rhys Jones: Rugby Development in Singapore.
• Best Asian Rugby Podcasts and Web Series