England Touch announces tournament dates for 2019

England Touch has announced the tournament dates for the 2019 domestic Touch season, along with the international competitions that the country will be playing in during the year.

2018 was the largest ever year for Touch in England, with more tournaments, more teams and more players competing across the country.

New venues such as Nottingham RFC, Wasps RFC and Birmingham Moseley RFC hosted tournaments, and thanks to the live streaming on YouTube the sport had wider coverage than ever before, too, with nearly two million viewing minutes on the platform during the year and the Finals Day of the Touch Nationals also being streamed on the BBC Sport website.

2019 will see the same tournaments as 2018, albeit with a few minor changes:

Each Series will now be decided on a league format first and foremost, with the overall champion being the team which finishes top of its league after all tournaments have been completed. These leagues will be published clearly on the England Touch website, along with the number of points on offer for each event

Team lists are to be submitted three days prior to each event

Early Bird tournament fees will close one month prior to the relevant event, with full payment to be received no later than two weeks before the event

Tournament fees have been frozen for 2019!

Venues are currently being booked, and will be announced in due course

England Touch is currently recruiting volunteers into the Events team to further improve how tournaments are planned and then organised on the day/weekend. For more information head to the Vacancies page of this website

SAVE THE DATE! England Touch is also going to be hosting the first Fortune Cup, a weekend-long competition on the weekend of July 6-7 which will be open to teams from across the globe with a cash prize for the winners!

Elite National Touch Series

This remains three events, with each event now running over the course of a weekend

Each event will be live streamed

Each team which enters must supply a qualified full-time referee

R1 May 25-26

R2 June 15-16

R3 June 29-30

Elite Men’s and Women’s National Touch Series

Due to the Touch World Cup this Series has been reduced to two weekends

Each event will be live streamed

A maximum of eight teams can enter each category. Entry will initially be by invitation only, based on 2018 rankings

Each team which enters must supply a qualified full-time referee

R1 July 13-14

R2 July 27-28

Emerging Men’s and Women’s National Touch Series

This remains a one-day tournament, but will now be separate from the Elite MW NTS

A maximum of eight teams can enter each category

There will be three tournaments in the Series

All tournaments will be held at the same venue as the Development National Touch Series which is on the same weekend (see below for dates). The Development NTS will be on the Saturday, the Emerging MW NTS on the Sunday

Clubs that enter both the Emerging MW NTS and Development NTS on the same weekend (i.e. Apr 14th and 15th, June 9th and 10th, etc) will be able to claim a £40 discount compared to booking as individual tournaments

R1 Apr 14

R2 June 9

R3 July 21

Development National Touch Series

This Series continues with the same format as 2018

A maximum of 16 teams can enter each tournament

R1 Apr 13

R2 May 18

R3 June 8

R4 July 20

R5 Sept 7

Touch Nationals

Due to continued growth year on year the Touch Nationals will now have the Opens and Juniors playing on the same weekend as each other, and the Seniors and Masters playing on the same weekend as each other

Both these events will be live streamed

Touch Nationals will now be charged on a per-day basis, not per-tournament, reflecting the differing lengths of tournaments

Opens and Juniors Aug 24-26 (Men’s Open, Women’s Open, Mixed Open, Mixed 15s, Boys’ 18s, Girls’ 18s, Mixed 18s)

Seniors and Masters Sept 14-15 (Men’s 30s, Women’s 27s/35s, Men’s 35s/40s, Men’s 45s)

International tournaments

England will be sending teams to the following events in 2019:

Touch World Cup (nr Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) Apr 29-May 4

Junior Touch Championships (Paris, France) Aug 16-18