A pair of British school rugby teams kicked off their two-week Alberta tour here in Cochrane, July 14, with exhibition matches against the U17/18 Bow Valley Barbarians and U18 Alberta Wolfpack.

In their first tour of the province, the Altrincham Grammar School for Boys teams, of the Greater Manchester area, are now on their northern swing, but starting here in Cochrane was a great kickoff, says Scott Meakin, of the school.

"Lovely, absolutely bang on," says Meakin, of the first few days in the country, that included two days of Western hospitality at the Calgary Stampede.

The Altrincham team was slightly younger, U15/16, and adjustments were made to account for the differences in size by having uncontested scrums. The result was a closely-matched game that saw Altringham take the lead in the first half but the Barbarians evened up the successful tries by the end of the match. In the end, they were only separated by a conversion.

"It's good for our boys to play against some bigger lads and see if they can weather the physical battle," says Meakin. "Unfortunately, it just came down to a conversion, which we managed to get and your guys just missed. Otherwise, it would have been a nice draw to start the tour."

Adrian Turner, president of the Bow Valley Rugby Club, says when they were invited to host an exhibition match there was no hesitation to accept the offer.

"The idea with these opportunities is to give our boys more game time against different sites, different accents, different backgrounds, different cultures. That's part of the fun and overall experience," says Turner, who says they hosted a social afterward.

"We tour every other year and we know when we tour what other teams do for us, so we try and give a little love back. It has taken a little work. but it's well worth it."

In the second match, the older Altringham team played U18 Alberta Wolfpack prospects, which included several Bow Valley players, who are just warming up for their season ahead.

Graeme Moffat, Alberta director of ruby for Rugby Alberta, and Wolfpack coaches, also enjoyed the opportunity for some exhibition play early in their season.

"We only had our first practice last week, so it's great to get some games in so early," says Moffat. "We play them today and again next week and it sets us up really well to go to Winnipeg in the middle of August."

He was particularly pleased to see the matches staged in Cochrane and heaped praise upon the Bow Valley organization.

"I think this is such a romantic story in Bow Valley. You've got a small group of guys that founded a club and in their fifth or sixth year they're playing in the premiership division, won the second division last year and they have a great junior program. I know guys like Adrian Turner have done a fantastic job in growing the game here and we just want to support them any way we can.

"I think they're a great example to all the other clubs in the province on how to build your program."

He's also pleased the U18 Western Championship has been restructured to allow for two Wolfpack teams to vie for the title.

"It doubles the number of opportunities for players and for coaches so we're really excited about that."

Last year, Alberta came away with three golds and a bronze at the national championships hosted in Calgary. That's nice, says Moffat, but the big picture is much loftier.

"What we're trying to develop is the Alberta way at the moment, which has more of a development focus. With all due respect, no one is going to remember in two years who won the U16 national championship."

"We want to help our players develop as much as we can and see how many can we can keep in the game and how many players can we get moving to senior rugby. How many of these Bow Valley guys today, for example, can move on to play for the Bow Valley Grizzlies?"

The Altrincham teams are in Alberta until July 25 and have a series of games, including a swing north to St. Albert then back to finish with final matches against the Calgary Hornets and a second game against the Alberta Wolfpack.