As the club's Female Officer and U18 Girls Coach, Dessie Higgins commented, the success was very well received within the club, as it has been a long time in the making:
"We were absolutely delighted with how the girls got on this year. They're a great bunch of girls who put in a serious amount of effort, so we're all really happy they achieved the success they deserved.
"That success doesn't happen overnight and it didn't just happen this year either. We've been working with these girls for the last five years. They played tag rugby for a little while then they progressed into contact at U15 level. It takes a lot of work and we have some great club people working with the girls to help them along. We are lucky in that we have quite big numbers so we had four people working with both the U15 and U18 teams. It means we can split the players into forwards and backs for training then we can also play 15-a-side games."
While Higgins acknowledges how much effort went into coaching the girls, he was also quick to recognise the importance of off-field activities in bringing the girls together:
"We're a fairly small rural club and Gaelic football is also very popular in the area but the girls just seem to love playing rugby. We try to organise additional activities throughout the year to encourage the bonding and friendship element, and I think those things do pay dividends."
Looking to the future, Virginia will now be aiming to establish a senior team for the first time ahead of the 2017/18 season, and Higgins sees this as a crucial development for the club:
"The next big step for us is for the senior team next year. We have ten or eleven of that U18 team who will be moving up to senior next year. We've put a lot of work in for these girls over the past five years and I wouldn't want to see them having to move to another club to get senior rugby, so we're going to be giving it a go here. Hopefully we'll be able to recruit a few other players during the off-season and put together a squad to play senior next year - that's very much the focus for us now."
As part of their prize, Virginia also won a bag of Ulster Carpets branded rugby balls plus 30 tickets to an Ulster game at Kingspan Stadium.
