New categories in Masters Nationals reflect sport’s growth

England Touch welcomes two new categories into the Masters Nationals in Nottingham this weekend.

The Mens 50 category is already established at international level, with a GB team playing in the 2019 Touch World Cup and England being represented at last summer’s European Touch Championships, where they beat Wales, Ireland and Singapore on the way to winning the competition.

But this is the first time that the category will be played in the Nationals, with four of the country’s six regions being represented.

The Midland Tigers, North East Raiders, North West and South East Taipans will vie for the honour of being named the first Nationals champion, with their competition taking place across Sunday and Monday at Highfields Sports Complex. The teams will play each other once in the round-robin stages, before the semi-finals and final decides who will take home the medals.

The Womens 40 is a rapidly growing category, both domestically and internationally, and after a demonstration event at the 2022 Nationals this category makes its competitive bow in Nottingham.

The Midlands, North West and South West will play in a round-robin, with the top two teams then having a final to decide the overall winner. These matches will be played across Saturday and Sunday.

England also has a Womens 40 squad for the first time, which is currently training ahead of upcoming international events.

Elsewhere the Masters division includes the Womens 35, Mens 40 and Mens 45 competitions.

The Womens 35 has been dominated by the South East over the past few years, with a team from that region winning in all-bar-one of the competitions held over the past five years. However the SE Sharks had to battle back against the Midland Tigers in 2022, overturning a 3-0 deficit in the opening 10 minutes to win 4-3.

This year’s teams are the Sharks, North East Raiders and West Wildcats, who will play each other in a round robin before the top two teams face off in a winner-take-all final.

There are four teams in the Mens 40 category – South West Saxons, South East Taipans, West Wildcats and North West – who will have a round-robin, semi-finals and final across Sunday and Monday.

Recent titles have been shared between the South West and South East.

Finally, in the Mens 45 category teams from the Midlands, South East, West and South West will battle it out across Sunday and Monday for the right to be called ‘champion’.

This category has dominated by the Midlands and West in recent years, who between them have won all the titles since the Mens 45 joined the Nationals in 2017.