Highland Wildcats are preparing to return to Britbowl later this summer after clinching the Scottish Conference Championship last weekend.
The Wildcats kept up their impeccable nine-match winning record this season, when they won all three matches at their third tournament of the campaign at Hamilton Palace on Saturday.
Victories over East Kilbride Pirates, Edinburgh Knights and Hamilton Buccaneers were enough to clinch top place in the conference, with a further tournament still to spare.
The Wildcats’ reward is a place at the Britbowl competition, organised by the British American Football Association, which takes place in Cambridge on July 30.
Wildcats, whose squad is made up of players between the ages of 13-16, are no strangers to the Britbowl scene.
Having competed in 10 events since first qualifying in 2006, Wildcats have won the tournament on three previous occasion.
Head coach Robbie Paulin says the club’s desire to hand opportunities to young players will ensure the full squad approaches the competition full of confidence.
Paulin said: “It’s strange this year as some of the conferences are much larger than our one, but the top team in each conference will go through.
“That’s only five spaces, with another three made up from wildcard slots. The runners-up who didn’t qualify will be put into one big table.
“We are reasonably low-seeded out of the Conference champions, because our points against record hasn’t been that great.
“When we are up we like to take players off so others can get experience.
“Rather than trying to hammer it home and get that absolute top seed, I would much rather allow players to develop a little bit.
“It’s always OK to fail. We want them to be in the situation where it doesn’t feel like a disaster if they let in a touchdown or drop a catch.
“It wouldn’t be the end of the world anyway, but I wouldn’t want them to feel that big impact of it.
“The seeding doesn’t really matter an awful lot in Britbowl. East Kilbride went through as the eighth seed one year and went on to win it.”
Success would not have been possible without volunteers
Paulin paid tribute to the efforts of Highland Wildcats’ volunteers for their efforts, which he says have gone a long way towards the club’s success.
He added: “It has been a really good season and a big thanks has to go to all the coaches and volunteers.
“I’d really like to emphasise the work the volunteers have done this year. It wouldn’t be possible without them.
“It has been our biggest staff we’ve had, and everybody has been so motivated and put in a lot of work.”
Preparation for Britbowl begins now
Wildcats’ efforts will now be focused on preparing for Britbowl, which will go ahead for the first time since 2019.
On that occasion Wildcats progressed to the final, where they were defeated by Kent Exiles.
Despite their excellent form, Paulin insists Wildcats’ feet remain firmly on the ground.
He added: “It has been reasonably convincing all season, but we are always quite careful to try and not be too complacent.
“We are quite hard on ourselves to make sure we are not assuming it’s going to be the same.
“We have come up against some teams who are really good at adapting, especially East Kilbride.
“It leaves us in a strange position about what to do with it. We still want to go in there and try to get that perfect season, but at the same time we want to start really aiming for Britbowl and prepping for that.
“We don’t want to show a lot of our tactics as the games will be filmed. We have a coaching meeting to figure it out.”