The Royal Navy’s Senior XV will play the Glasgow Hawks in an eagerly anticipated representative rugby match on Wednesday 8 March 2017.
The match will feature the Senior XV of the Royal Navy Rugby Union (RNRU) taking on the Hawks to raise money for the Craig Hodgkinson Trust and the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity.
The Craig Hodgkinson Trust is named after former Royal Marine and Hawks Player Craig Hodgkinson, who tragically died playing rugby for the Royal Navy from an unknown cardiac defect.
The Hodgkinson family set up a trust was set up in Craig’s memory to provide defibrillator equipment to sports team, clubs and communities across the UK. The Trust’s aim is to save as many of the 1,500 lives lost to cardiac arrest outside hospitals each year.
Craig’s parents Diane and John Hodgkinson will present at trophy in their son’s name to the winning team on the night. The teams last met in 2007 when they contested a memorial match for Craig.
The game will kick off at 7.30pm at the Old Anniesland sports grounds at the High School of Glasgow, home of the Glasgow Hawks.
This is the Navy’s fourth of seven preparation matches as they prepare for the 2017 Inter Service competition against the Army and RAF in April.
Director of Rugby, Kenny Hamilton said, “Hawks are delighted to renew our friendship with Royal Navy rugby and there is a great deal of excitement about the match which follows our Scottish Cup quarter final against Gala on 4th March.”
He added, “Because of the significance of the match we will be competing for a specially created Craig Hodgkinson Trophy on the night. That spirit of competition and friendship is the most appropriate tribute we can pay and we are looking forward to an enjoyable night.”
“The Royal Navy is numerically the largest armed service in Scotland,” said Rear Admiral John Weale, Scotland’s most senior Royal Navy Officer. “Scotland is also home to some of the most important Royal Navy assets in the country and this match is just one small way that we can say thank you to our communities for their enduring support.”
The 4,200 Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel in Scotland are based at HM Naval Base Clyde, bringing the two new aircraft carriers through build in Rosyth, Commandos in Arbroath and various reserve centres around Scotland.
It was recently confirmed that HM Naval Base Clyde will become the UK’s single integrated submarine operating base from 2020. From then all of the UK’s submarines will be based in Scotland, with HM Naval Base Clyde’s workforce increasing to 8,500 by 2022 as a result.
These personnel will support the introduction of the Astute-class attack boats by the mid-2020s and the new Dreadnought class of deterrent submarines from the early 2030s. The construction phases of this work are expected to support a further 1,000 contractor jobs.
