Pentland Touch held its last session of 2026 on 24 September, and 21 Under-12s turned up for it. Sarah Hedley, who plays for Scotland Women, was the club’s guest that evening and presented a certificate to every child who attended.
That session closed an autumn block of seven Under-12s sessions. Across the block, 28 different children came along, making 96 attendances in total. Girls accounted for 78% of those attendances.
Numbers were down on the summer term. The club puts that down to two things: the weather and the time the sessions were played. The children who came kept coming, though, and every week followed the same format of some training and then a game.
The make-up of the group matters for what comes next. Chris from Pentland Touch says the club has talented girls in its Under-12s who could form the core of a strong girls’ team, and that all of them are engaged with Touch. With nearly four in every five attendances this autumn coming from girls, the numbers back that ambition.
Most of the children arrived new to rugby, never mind Touch. That means the coaches are building skills from nothing, starting with the basics each week. What they have to work with is raw energy, athleticism and enthusiasm, and on the evidence of seven autumn sessions there is plenty of all three.
Pentland Touch, based in south Edinburgh, launched in April 2026, so this autumn block rounds off the club’s first year of junior sessions. The sessions have drawn mainly girls from the local primary schools, and the club plans to take the programme wider than Bonaly Primary School in 2027. It is looking at two categories, Under-13s and Under-10s, and at how to use the share of National Lottery funding awarded to Edinburgh & Lothian Touch. The players are already looking ahead, and have been asking what date in April the club starts again.
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