Scotland International stars Stuart Hogg, Huw Jones, Lana Skeldon and Megan Kennedy visited Biggar Rugby Club as part of Royal Bank RugbyForce weekend on Saturday.

Alongside the rugby stars, the historic club called on the local community to visit and join in a Club Tidy Up with the aim of banking over 300 hours of volunteer time for DIY projects.

The Scotland Internationals were on hand at the South Lanarkshire Club to support the volunteer efforts and to help out with a series of junior coaching sessions.

As one of this season’s RugbyForce ‘Hero Clubs’, Biggar RFC has been awarded £1,000 funding to help support the club in their three development goals. These include maintaining existing facilities and creating a volunteer workforce; player recruitment in both the Men’s and Women’s sections; and cementing the club’s connection with the community by raising their profile and encouraging more members to join.

Biggar Rugby Club has established a positive reputation for the strength of their Women’s coaching and development in recent seasons with the likes of Sarah Denholm being selected for Scotland U18s 7s Squad in July. Women’s rugby is thriving at Biggar, with the club fielding a Women’s first XV as well an U18s and U15s side.

The Royal Bank RugbyForce programme supports grassroots clubs to attract new members, make improvements and become more sustainable for the future.

To find just two top winners from over 150 applications, the judges picked two clubs that showed considered plans for their RugbyForce events that would benefit their community and grow a local passion for the game. Biggar Rugby Club was one of the winning clubs that claimed one of the top Royal Bank RugbyForce prizes of £1,000, plus a visit from Scotland players.

This year marks ten years of Royal Bank of Scotland delivering the programme with support from Scottish Rugby. Each year, the partnership has supported around 150 local rugby clubs. As part of the campaign, the RugbyForce Weekend will see rugby clubs across the country hosting a range of pre-season events.

Malcolm Buchanan, chairman, Royal Bank of Scotland, Scotland Board, said: “It’s fantastic to see what Biggar Rugby Club has achieved as this year’s Royal Bank RugbyForce winners. We were delighted to award them a top prize in this year’s Royal Bank RugbyForce competition, and it looked like the whole community enjoyed the events of the weekend."

On the pitch Biggar entertained St Boswells in a warm-up game.

Boswells were let down somewhat by some very late call offs.

And with Biggar counting on a squad of some 25, it was always going to make the visitors' task all that more difficult.

Played over four 20 minute quarters, the game was a tad disjointed and scrappy although given that this was both teams first run out of the season that is hardly surprising.

The Boswells pack posed some problems in the scrum and should have probably made more of an impression had their lineout functioned properly but this cost them dearly when promising attacking positions were lost via over throws.

In reply Biggar ran well to test their defence to the full.

In a tit-for-tat game the sides traded tries over the first two quarters before Biggar began to open up a gap in the third to eventually run out winners by 33-17.

Boswells points came from tries credited to Lawlor, Paxton and Hogg with Chisholm adding a conversion.

Biggar’s points came from newcomer Franko Carossi, Ross Jackson (2), Douglas Notman and Ali Steele. E

uan Bogle kicked two conversions, with Davy Reive and Steele both notching one a-piece.

Nic Humphries, Rugby Manager at Biggar Rugby Club said: “It was brilliant to see the local community come down to Biggar Rugby Club this weekend, taking part in the Club Tidy Up and meeting their Scotland International heroes.

“The RugbyForce initiative has really helped us to get the club ready for the new season and to shine a light on our women's programme.

"We’re all about inclusion here at Biggar and I hope to see many of the faces who came down this weekend again once the season kicks off.”