Highland Wildcats hold flag football tournament in Inverness

Schools from across the region will be travelling to Millburn Academy on Sunday as the Highland Wildcats hold a schools flag football tournament.

Usually, the Wildcats would not go into schools and run sessions until the new year, building up to their Highland Academies Community League, but this year they decided to do something different.

Forgoing the annual Blitz Awards at the end of a disrupted year of competition, they decided to make use of the time to run sessions earlier, starting with flag football before the Christmas break before stepping up to touch and the first stages of contact American football in January.

These first set of sessions, that have been taking place over recent weeks in nine schools across Inverness and Ross-shire, will culminate in a tournament between all of them this weekend to bring a competitive edge to proceedings.

That is a crucial element for the Wildcats.

Development officer Robbie Paulin believes that interest is always piqued – and training at its most effective – when it is building to matches, rather than running sessions for the sake of running sessions.

“It has been building week-on-week – the first week at the IRA we only had two, and then the next week there were eight kids I think that came along,” Paulin explained.

“That’s where it starts to spread, so it has been nice to see that every single school has grown over the first couple of weeks that we’ve been running.

“With the tournament, we’ve got something to build to.

“It was difficult getting all the facilities nailed down, but we’ve got it at Millburn. They’ve been a really good host before, so we’ve had something to sell to the kids.

“Practices are good fun and the kids enjoy it, but in any sport you’ve got to be practicing for something, so it’s been nice to have that to look forward to.”

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