The Rochdale Swarm have just returned from their third visit to Bruff near Limerick in Ireland where they played in the huge "Bull`n`Booze" Tag Rugby Festival.

The Swarm performed the best they ever have in Ireland reaching the Semi-Finals of the middle grade cup.

Despite taking what looked on paper as a fairly inexperienced squad the Swarm played some fantastic Rugby gaining friends and admirers along the way.

In the opening group stages the Swarm came up against teams who although faster overall couldn't match the Swarms ball handling ability.

The clash of styles led to a series of very even games with the pace of the Irish up against the craft of the Swarm.

With the four group games all being won or lost by the odd score and with a draw thrown in, with Matty Fallows in-particular crossing the whitewash for the Swarm most regularly, and Emily Wynn and Gaynor Ramsbottom also posing a threat in attack and reliable in defence. The Rochdale team emerged from the group stages with some credit.

In the knock-out stages the tempo upped a good few degrees with Ste Mason and Dougie McEndoo coming to the fore. Veterans Mark Wynn and Dave Ramsbottom prompted and probed the Irish defences and Wakefield based Leon Nightingale played some superb Rugby after coming over with the Swarm to guest for the Rochdale outfit.

In the end the Swarm fell at the Semi-Final stage but they went down with a huge amount of pride, never giving up until the final hooter sounded.

The Swarm have made an enormous amount of friends over in Ireland and were rewarded with a special presentation by the organisers for all the Swarms efforts.

For the record the Bruff Tag Festival was won by another British based Tag Rugby League side, London "A", who were able to call upon the massive antipodean population with Tag Rugby experience. The London "A" side contained players who had represented Australia, New South Wales and Queensland at Tag Rugby League and they proved too strong for the opposition, even beating what was considered the best Tag side in West Ireland.

The Swarm return to League action on Saturday with the latest in the Tag Rugby League Series.
The latest event is in Sheffield and with a good perfomance the Swarm could rise as high as 3rd place in the League Table.

ALL PLAYERS are asked to meet on Saturday morning 8.30am at Firgrove Workers for the trip over.

In a particularly busy period for the Swarm they are also playing in a Masters (over 35`s full contact) game on Sunday as well as having players in the Rochdale Riley Cup and recently taking part in the Rochdale Charity Cup 9`s reaching the Plate Final.

Swarm training continues on Firgrove on Tuesday evenings with a 6.30pm start, new palyers are always welcome.