PRIDE and honour will be hotly contested at Malvern Rugby Club next Saturday (December 11), when a long-awaited challenge match takes place.

The match between the Malvern U16 Angels and the Malvern U16 Pirates will be finally played out before the Malvern v Hinckley league clash.

The origin of the challenge goes back to May 2000, when Malvern Angel Kerris Levin, then a member of the Malvern U12 Pirates squad, dared her former colleagues to prove that boys were better rugby players than girls.

The following September, Kerris moved to the newly formed Malvern Angels Youth Section (MAYS) because of the RFU ban on mixed contact rugby above Under 12, but the dare was left unchallenged - until now.

While all of her former male team-mates banded together to form the Malvern Pirates, Kerris Levin has made a name for herself in local women's rugby by graduating to the West Midlands U16 district rugby squad and possible selection to the Midlands squad later this year.

However, it is the challenge match that will be in the forefront of Kerris' mind on December 11 when she and the other Malvern U16 Angels try to put to rest any myths that women cannot play rugby as well as men by beating the Pirates in a seven a-side tag-rugby match.

The event will be used by both the sides to support the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) by raising money to sponsor a guide dog and other much needed visual aids for those with impaired vision.

The event will also launch a new community sport campaign to encourage girls aged from nine to 12-years-old to take up rugby by joining the Malvern Rugby Club to form a special U12 rugby squad that is totally dedicated to playing inter-club tag rugby matches.

More details of the tag-rugby scheme will be published in the Malvern Gazette in the New Year.