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RugbyFest - Register Now
Following the enthusiasm and interest surrounding the Girls' Activity Days, we are excited to announce that you are now able to register to host a RugbyFest event during the weekend of 3 - 6 October.
RugbyFest events are designed to celebrate the end of an inspiring and memorable World Cup and launch your new season!
Clubs can run your own local events, such as taster sessions, family fun days or mini festivals, to celebrate the sport, welcome new faces and mark the start of the season.
By registering your RugbyFest event, your club could:
- Be in with a chance to host a visit from a Red Rose
- Be one of the first 200 clubs to register and claim either a women and girls rugby event pack or a T1 Rugby equipment pack.
- Enter the competition to SuperCharge your RugbyFest.
The club who wins the competition to SuperCharge their event will receive:
- Red Roses appearances to support your day
- Glitter tattoos and hair braiding
- Prize draw and spot prizes from our partners (incl. A VIP short break package which would make a great raffle prize!)
- A photo box
- Event photography for the day
- Tailored project management support from the RFU
The winning club will also receive tailored extras to help elevate their RugbyFest event.
Register now
The deadline to enter the ‘SuperCharge your RugbyFest’ competition is midnight on 10 August 2025 so don’t miss out!
Join the Red Roses Yarn Art Community Initiative
We’re also continuing to support the Red Roses Yarn Art campaign, announced on 12 June by England stars Abby Dow and Tatyana Heard. This nationwide initiative has had a fantastic response so far from host cities, clubs, and community groups and we can’t wait to see all your rugby-themed knitted and crochet decorations to celebrate the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025.
The campaign will culminate in a spectacular Yarn Art installation nationwide on 4 August.
If you cannot join a host city installation day feel free to decorate your club and join the fun on 4 August; make sure you put it all over your socials!
For club specific guidance, take a look at our Club Yarn Art guide.
Remember to continue to:
- Organise events to create yarn art at your club, encouraging creative members to contribute to the nationwide effort.
- Promote the initiative on social media and around your club.
- Order Yarn Kits through the Wool Warehouse who have produced kits with a Red Rose, bunting, granny squares and rugby balls as well as a 10% discount across all other items on their website using the code REDROSE10 – you can find the How-To guides on our website.
- Join the 4 August installation day in your nearest city or in your club and be part of this celebration of rugby.
Important: Yarn art should not be placed in any public or private spaces without the express permission of the relevant local council/authority and land or property owner. Please ensure that your local council/authority, and relevant land or property owner have given their express permission to decorate any public or private spaces with your yarn art before doing so.
Girls' Participation
Register now for your chance to get one of the last packs for Girls' Activity Days.
Looking to increase the number of girls in your minis? New guidance highlights how clubs are successfully boosting girls' participation at U7–U11 age groups.
During our dialogue with clubs throughout the last season, including at our roadshows, one of the most prominent issues raised by clubs was the current competition formats. In response, significant work has taken place to explore potential improvements that address these concerns.
Many of the options being considered are complex and therefore require further discussion and club consultation.
However, in the short term, in collaboration with the Adult Comps Management Committee, we have gathered targeted feedback from clubs on how to create a competition format that keeps league seasons engaging right to the end, supports player retention, and helps drive club revenue.
The outcomes of this process have been to fast-track the below change and begin the process of modernising our competitions.
From the 2025/26 season, play-offs will be introduced in both National and Regional men’s leagues.
- In the Men’s National leagues, there will be promotion/relegation play-offs between National 1 and the Championship, and between National 1 and National 2.
- In the Men’s Regional Leagues, there will be promotion/relegation play-offs between Regional 1 and Regional 2, and play-offs for promotion into National 2. As a result, the current cup competition model will be removed for these levels.
These changes mean that for this coming season, there will be more meaningful matches throughout the entire season and clubs will be able to generate more revenue through competitive, exciting rugby right up to the final whistle of the league campaign.
Further updates will follow direct to all clubs involved.
Thank you to all the clubs that participated in the engagement process and contributed to shaping the future of our competitions.
We're pleased to announce that we've increased the Travel Funding Support by £200,000 this season. As a result the travel funding policy for teams playing in the 2025/26 RFU Leagues will remain the same as last season for offshore travel, with a slight change for onshore travel.
For onshore travel, support will be provided to teams in all leagues who have excessive travel to participate in the leagues, and to particularly compensate teams for the excess travel costs above the average, or threshold, for that league level.
Clubs will receive a payment, calculated on a per mile basis, for every mile they travel that takes them above the league level average or the threshold set (there will be a minimum compensation in place to avoid very small payments).
For offshore travel, eligible Men’s and Women’s teams required to travel offshore to the Channel Islands or Isle of Man will receive £2,000 to support their costs, whilst teams travelling to the Isle of Wight will also receive a payment administered through Hampshire CB as per recent seasons.
Teams in receipt of onshore travel funding will be informed of their funding levels by 31 July.
All travel payment will be made in August.
This season, we've received lots of feedback, and have engaged with lots of clubs throughout the season to ascertain their feedback on how to improve the Community Cup Competition.
Papa Johns are no longer an RFU commercial partner and we are therefore taking this opportunity to restructure the format of the competition.
We're introducing a new format for next season, giving clubs a cup fixture early in the campaign. All clubs will be automatically entered, with the option to opt out by 8 August.
Competition Structure
- Counties 1 & 2:
- One National Championship
- Two Regional Cups (North & South)
- Counties 3 & below:
- One National Championship
- Three Regional Cups (North, Central & South)
Please note:
- Teams will be ranked based on their best playing record from last season.
- Relegated teams will compete in the Championship at their new level.
Further information on this will follow in the next 7-10 days.
Both Adult and Age Grade Registration are now open for the 2025/26 season.
Adult players can now renew their registrations and parents or guardians can renew their child or dependent to ensure they hit the ground running when the season kicks off.
To do this you will need to login to GMS. To improve our users' login experience, we've introduced Single Sign On to the England Rugby website and GMS, meaning you’ll only need one email and password to log in to any part of the England Rugby system.
To sign in, you'll need to use your default GMS email address. Logging in with your username will no longer be possible. All passwords need to meet a standard criteria. If you receive an error when entering your GMS password ,please reset your password using the 'forgot password' link.
Contact Training, Match Load and Recovery Guidance – Supporting Age Grade Players and Coaches
We are pleased to share this new guidance to help players to keep playing rugby in all the places that they want to. This is especially aimed at players who will be playing in multiple environments and have the most demands on their time.
The contact training, match load and recovery guidance is not regulation. The guidelines provide principles and a framework to help coaches plan and design training sessions and schedule game time for players that most effectively manages their contact load.
As ever, the most important thing is for everyone involved in the player’s rugby to work together and have regular dialogue to help the player balance their training and playing time across the various places they play rugby.
For more information, visit Contact Guidance or read our helpful FAQs.
Age Grade Summer Activity Framework for July & August 2025
The Summer Activity Framework continues during the age grade off-season. This defines the only formats and amount of training and playing/fixtures that can take place at each age group month by month. The July and August activities are as shown in the table.
A reminder also that, when planning your World Cup activities, the number of fixtures/festivals in August has been increased to four and touring teams from other Unions are welcome throughout August this year, as well as during the playing season. Please note that the usual approvals still apply.
Please see Summer Activity for the full information with links to the specific formats for friendly fixtures/festivals and loads of support to share with coaches, teachers, parents and players.
More Twinkl Resources Available for Teachers and Parents
In partnership with Twinkl, we have uploaded more resources for teachers and parents. These bring rugby union to life in a fun and engaging way for kids both the classroom and at home in the holidays.
Action if of interest
The 2025/26 season coach training programme is here! With over 800 courses and 15,000 places available for booking, it’s time to secure your place on the course you need.
If you’re a coach of 14-18 year olds, check out the summer programme of core skills development courses: Tackle, Kicking and Catch & Pass.
If you’re coaching U6 – U8 rugby this season, make sure you’ve done your England Rugby Tag Rugby course. It will give you everything you need to understand how to referee and coach Tag Rugby.
If you’re coaching U9 – U11 or are new to contact rugby, you need to complete the England Rugby First Contact Course to help you understand how to coach and referee early contact rugby safely and effectively.
If you are moving into U12 rugby or are already working with players of 12 and above, the England Rugby Coaching Award is for you.
If you are coaching Lineout or Scrum this season, look out for the Principles of Lineout and Scrum courses in your area.
Finally, all coaches should complete the FREE Headcase concussion awareness online training before the season starts.
If you’re a club coaching coordinator, please share this training information with your coaches – make sure they know which is the right course for them.
Please note, we have now enabled Google and Apple pay which you can use when you are purchasing a course or a membership within the Game Management System.
The Community Rugby Injury Surveillance and Prevention (CRISP) Project is now open for team registrations for the 2025-26 season. Managed by the University of Bath and funded by the RFU as part of RugbySafe research, CRISP plays a vital role in tracking and understanding injury trends across the community game.
This is a unique opportunity for clubs and schools to contribute to player welfare through valuable injury data that informs future safety initiatives, such as evaluating the effects of the lowered tackle height introduced in July 2023.
Who Can Take Part?
Teams from the following levels are invited to join:
- Adult Male Community – National, Regional & Counties Levels
- Adult Female Community – Championship & National Challenge Levels
- Age Grade (Boys & Girls) – U13 to U18 in clubs, schools, and colleges
What’s Involved?
Pre-Season:
- Basic details on age, weight, and height for all 1st team squad players
- Individual player consent (via secure online form)
During the Season:
- Match summaries: score, weather, opponents, pitch surface
- Report of any injuries resulting in 8+ days time-loss from match play
Teams can choose how to submit their data:
- Proactive reporting system
- Podium SportSmart platform
- Standard spreadsheet or paper forms
Each participating team will receive a custom injury report, comparing their match injury data to averages for similar playing levels—providing valuable insights to inform local player welfare strategies.
How to Get Involved
The RFU Virtual Safeguarding Conference is taking place on 12 July 2025 for CB safeguarding managers and club safeguarding officers. It is also open to committee members, coaches, referees and all volunteers involved in our sport.
We are grateful to be joined by expert speakers from the Child Protection in Sport Unit and National Working Group, who will be delivering key sessions on creating safer events and learning from lived experiences to inform safeguarding practices, respectively. The RFU Safeguarding Team will provide an overview of learnings from last season and what’s to come for the 2025/26 season.
There are a limited number of places, so please register as soon as possible. You can also find further information and the agenda.
Volunteers
If you are looking for hints and tips on how to find and recruit new volunteers, support current volunteers, or recognise the great work, visit the Volunteers page.
GMS Support Trainers
Our small network of GMS support trainers are available to provide training, support and guidance to clubs and Constituent Bodies on key topics within the Game Management System (GMS).
They have in-depth knowledge of the GMS platform which is our primary platform to support the administration of rugby union.
To express interest in receiving a support session, fill in our expression of interest form.
The Club Management Health Check
The Club Management Health Check is an online self-assessment tool designed to help rugby clubs review their Business Operations and Club Management areas, and can be found on the Club Health Check page.
Completing the tool will be a collaborative effort from across the club using the knowledge from club volunteers and staff (where appropriate) who are responsible for the relevant area, which are:
Club Management
- Policies & Procedures
- People
- Structure, Standards & Conduct
- Communications
Business Operations
- Strategy & Vision
- People & Premises
- Communications & Marketing
- Finance & Commercial
After completing the Health Check, clubs receive a customised action plan, with links to a large range of helpful resources, which can be saved and downloaded to share with relevant club committee members.
Howden Risk Assessment Tool
As part of a club's Regulation 9 responsibilities, they must complete an annual first aid risk assessment. It should be reviewed/updated each season between the beginning of July and the end of September.
To support clubs and rugby activity organisers with this responsibility, the RFU have worked with Howden, the RFU insurance broker, to produce a risk assessment tool for clubs to use.
The Howden Risk Assessment Tool is now integrated into the RFU Game Management System (GMS). To access, please go to the GMS login page and login using your individual GMS details.
Please note: Individuals need GMS Level 3 or above to access the risk assessment tool via their club’s organisational profile.
The following video provides a step-by-step guide on how to access the risk assessment tool via GMS.
GMS-Howden Risk Assessment Tool Explainer
Further off field club support
The RFU provides various 'off field club support' services - many of which are free.
- Guidance on legal or tax matters for clubs is provided by England Rugby’s Official Legal partner, Irwin Mitchell, via the Legal & Tax Helpline: 0333 010033. Plus, there are a wide range of online legal documents available free of charge, on the Irwin Mitchell Legal Documents Portal.
- For entertainment licensing, including premises licenses, club premises certificates and gambling, we operate the free specialist Alcohol (& Gambling) licensing Helpline 0115 934 9177 in partnership with Poppleston Allen Licensing Solicitors. For VAT support contact Russell Moore, a former partner at a leading sports advisory accountants. The first 30 minutes of advice is free to clubs with any additional services provided at greatly reduced rates. Either call Russell on 07710 329317 or email russellmoore@sportsvat.co.uk.
- Did you know the RFU automatically provides member clubs with insurance for various third-party claims? The cover includes: Public Liability Insurance, Professional Indemnity Insurance, Employers Liability, Directors and Officers Liability – find out more at the Howden website (official insurance broker for RFU Clubs).
- Has your club used the online self-assessment Club Health Check tool yet? This is designed to help clubs better understand their relative strengths and development for their ‘off field’ areas. Once completed, the tool provides a bespoke action plan.
For awareness
Please complete this five-minute survey to help the IPF understand levels of awareness of the charity amongst the community.
By completing the survey you’ll also have the chance to be entered into a prize draw to win an England rugby shirt signed by the 2025 England Men’s XV Summer Tour Squad.
Following a recent review of the Emergency First Aid in Rugby Union (EFARU) course, England Rugby will no longer deliver face-to-face first aid training. The minimum requirement for emergency first aiders involved in rugby will continue to be a Level 3 Emergency First Aid at Work (EFAW) or an equivalent nationally recognised qualification.
This change is due to factors beyond RFU control that have affected the number of qualified tutors available. As a result, clubs are encouraged (as many already are) to source first aid training independently from local or national providers. This model allows for greater flexibility and helps reduce the administrative burden on volunteers.
To support clubs in making this transition, comprehensive guidance is now available on Pitch Side First Aid & Immediate Care.
The updated information includes:
- Conducting a First Aid Risk Assessment
- RFU Reportable Events & Injury Recording
- Developing a Medical Emergency Action Plan (MEAP)
- Recommended First Aid / Immediate Care Equipment
- Pitch Side Care Standards (PSCS)
- Training and responsibilities for First Aiders in Rugby
- Information and expectations for Immediate Care Practitioners (ICPs)
The First Aid in Rugby section also outlines how clubs can work with existing training providers and includes tips for organising a course effectively.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to player safety and welfare.
As part of a club's Regulation 9 (Player Safety) responsibilities, they must complete an annual first aid risk assessment. It should be reviewed/updated each season between the beginning of July and the end of September.
To support clubs and rugby activity organisers with this responsibility, the RFU have worked with Howden, the RFU insurance broker, to produce a risk assessment tool for clubs to use.
The Howden Risk Assessment Tool is a bespoke platform that includes a number of risk assessments templates. This includes the first aid risk assessment template that can be utilized for the annual risk assessment.
The Howden Risk Assessment Tool is now integrated into the RFU Game Management System (GMS). To access, please go to the GMS login page and login using your individual GMS details.
The following video provides a step-by-step guide on how to access the risk assessment tool via GMS.
GMS-Howden Risk Assessment Tool
Please note: Individuals need GMS Level 3 or above to access the risk assessment tool via their club’s organisational profile.
The Club Safeguarding Audit is mandatory under Regulation 21 for clubs that offer age grade activities, or wish to have 17-year olds playing up into the adult game. It is designed to assist clubs in identifying which key safeguarding provisions are place and whether further support may be required. The audit was automatically assigned to clubs that GMS recognised as offering age grade activity last season; it is not automatically assigned to adult only clubs that wish to have 17 year olds playing up.
The deadline for submission this year is 24 October 2025 and no further edits or submissions will be allowed after this date. The exception to this is if you are an adult only club and have a 17 year old who wishes to play up into the adult game at a later date in the season.
If you are an adult only club potentially with 17 year olds wishing to play up into the adult game this season, or if your club offers age grade activity and has been missed in error, please email safeguarding@rfu.com to request (stating the reason) your club to be added.
Guidance on how to access and submit the audit is available via the Community Rugby Help Portal. If you have any difficulties with completion, please contact the RFU Safeguarding Team via safeguarding@rfu.com or your CB Safeguarding Manager.
When the Gender Participation Policy was approved in August 2022, the RFU committed to reviewing it regularly based on new evidence and feedback from the community.
Earlier this year, we engaged directly with two independent researchers with a special interest in this area and received submissions of new evidence from the public. In addition, direct input was gathered from the trans community through the RFU’s Trans Participation User Group.
In June, the review outcome was presented to and passed by Council, with contact participation regulations for trans men and trans women remaining as set out in the 2022 policy.
A recommendation was made regarding the qualification process for trans men: specifically, removing the requirement for a formal risk assessment, consent form, and notification form to be submitted to the RFU for adult trans men. This was also passed by Council.
The rationale for this change is primarily based on feedback from the trans male community, which indicates that the current three-step process – which goes beyond the requirements of any other group in rugby – discourages participation.
We will be updating the Gender Participation Policy in accordance with the recommendation passed at the June Council meeting. New guidance on using the policy will be issued and can be accessed on the Gender Participation page.
In case you missed them, check out some more of the top community rugby stories over the last month from the England Rugby website below and don't forget to submit yours.
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