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OPPOSITEGet Into Rugby activities took place across the worldIn growing partnership with its member unions and six regional associations, World Rugby has continued to break barriers in 2016, taking the game and its core values of respect, integrity, passion, discipline and solidarity to almost two million new young players, with the first Get Into Rugby graduates to national age-grade teams emerging in Hungary and Chinese Taipei.Already easily accessible to both member and non-member unions, the Get Into Rugby programme was further boosted in 2016 by key developments.For the past three years, GIR co-ordinators have been working in each of World Rugby’s six regional associations to enable the consistent roll-out of the programme. They are backed up by a new website and App that now outline in multiple languages the fun, game-based approach, curriculum and a dedicated news feed. In addition, an World Rugby’s mass participation programme Get Into Rugby (GIR) has continued to blossom in 2016, taking the sport to new people and places.GET INTO RUGBY BREAKS RECORD GROUND IN 2016innovative suite of communications and promotional tools and templates has also been made freely available, supporting all unions and regional associations in their paper-based and online branding and marketing of events. Appealing to the younger market, those forward-thinking measures have had a dramatic uplift on numbers, with 1,990,300 youngsters attracted to Get Into Rugby, including an impressive 39 per cent girls. In all, 30,500 trained personnel have delivered activities in 129 of the 157 registered unions across 2,250 active locations. Of all the regional associations, Sudamérica Rugby and Asia Rugby have seen the greatest influx to the game in the calendar year, both undoubtedly boosted by the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and, in the case of Asia, the build-up to Rugby World Cup 2019 and the 2020 Olympic Games. Olympic Solidarity funding also supported two key regional workshops.Notably, the programme was launched this year in Morocco, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Anguilla, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Luxembourg, while elite athletes also continued to offer their support. Scotland’s Dutch-born winger Tim Visser attended in the Netherlands, Spain’s Patricia García took an active role in Chile and Colombia’s national players helped on home soil.In Fiji, meanwhile, Get Into Rugby is now the primary, recognised tool for the development of the women’s game and the Fijiana players – stars of the Olympic Games and the sevens series – have also featured in concerted campaigns to drive more female participation in the game, with dramatic effects. Weather has also proved no barrier to entry with Get Into Snow Rugby taking off down snowy slopes in Chile, India, China, Mongolia and Scandinavia!2016 IN NUMBERS2 million children reached39%female participation30,500trained personnel129active memberunions2,250locationsYEAR IN REVIEW 2016 WORLD RUGBY 49GET INTO RUGBY | PARTICIPATE