The former Scotland coach likes a challenge and when he went to Rwanda he was amazed at what he found. Frank Hadden writes of his week there.

12.12.2010 sundayherald

In the last couple of years I have coached rugby in nearly 20 countries. I like a challenge and this is known by Craig Brown, the CEO of Penguin Rugby Academy, a charity aimed at providing coaching courses for youngsters in rugby backwaters all over the world. He rarely fails to surprise when he calls, and this time he asked if I would like to go to Rwanda. Rugby there was started about 10 years ago when two women, Deena Aiken, who had played for Australia, and Emma Rees from England, went to work in the country.

They introduced Tag Rugby, initially in schools, and due to the enthusiastic response set up "The Friends of Rwanda Rugby”, a fundraising mechanism which is still going today. Last week they raised more than £6000 at a breakfast at Wasps, hosted by Shaun Edwards. The country has come along way in that decade.

I first came across the Rwandans when the Penguins did a joint session with them in Hong Kong last March. They were in China because Dave Hughes, a surveyor and keen rugby player from Hong Kong, was moved by reading about the plight of a country trying to recover from the genocide of 1994, when almost one million people were slaughtered in three months, and decided to go there to do voluntary work.

One day he saw a couple of youngsters chucking a rugby ball around and stopped to speak to them. He discovered there were four teams in the country and he promptly joined the Sharks. Some time later he resolved to try to take the national team to play in the Kowloon 10s, prior to the Hong Kong Sevens. Media coverage in both Rwanda and abroad sparked a surge of interest in the game and, to keep the momentum going, Hughes asked Brown if he could supply a coach and a referee for a week of intensive work.

Our first day two weeks ago was supposed to consist of a visit to the national football stadium (the first time the rugby fraternity had been allowed on the hallowed turf) to watch the final stages of a triangular tournament featuring neighbours the Congo, Burundi and the hosts. Sadly the Congo withdrew at the last minute and by the time we arrived Rwanda had beaten Burundi twice. As the stadium had been booked, I put the national team through their paces and it was clear they had made progress over the course of the year.

They are not as big as rugby players in our neck of the woods but are quick, with good hands, and would hold their own somewhere in the middle of our National Leagues. After the well-kept surface at the stadium, it was a shock to see where they usually trained and played.

The one pitch in the capital, Kigali, has football goals, is about the size of a hockey pitch, has a sparse covering of grass, a permanent pool of stagnant water in the middle and a large trench on one of the goal lines. There are no line markings, with one touchline pretty much a 12-foot drop to a river and the other a 12-foot high embankment.

The week consisted of a level one refereeing course run by one of the Scottish Rugby Union development officers, Colin Brett, and training sessions with the under-14s, under-18s and the women’s team, as well as the national team. At the end of each session the players got together to sing and dance– a bit different from the couple of beers I am used to. Who would have thought there would be an opportunity to unleash my "Pas de Bas” in Central Africa.

At the end of the week there was a Sevens festival in our honour. It was fascinating watching the commitment, enthusiasm and no little skill of all the players on the kind of surface the average Scot wouldn’t even walk his dog on. It was full contact all the way but thankfully they reined in the aggression on the more dangerous areas of the pitch. Health and safety would have had a field day.

In the last couple of years I have been amazed at the game of rugby’s capacity to grow and even thrive in the most unlikely circumstances. Rwanda is now one of the safest and most stable countries in Africa and it was quite remarkable to see victims from both sides of the terrible atrocities coming together to enjoy the rivalry and the camaraderie of the best team game in the world.

(Source: Sunday Herald of 12.12.2010)