Quins announce tie-up with St Mary's (From Hounslow And Brentford Times)

Quins announce tie-up with St Mary's

1:41pm Thursday 26th February 2009 in Sport

Harlequins Rugby League are delighted to announce that St Mary's University College Twickenham have become their major shirt sponsor for 2009.

The deal cements an already strong relationship which in recent years has seen Harlequins Rugby League staff coaching the St Mary’s Rugby League team to winning the BUSA championship.

Harlequins chairman, David Hughes, said: “St Mary’s have a thoroughly well deserved reputation for excellence in sport and we are very proud to have them on board for the 2009 season.”

Principal Dr Arthur Naylor said today that St Mary's was delighted to take this opportunity because it underlined the University College's commitment to working in the community and developing sport at all levels.

"Like us, Harlequins are committed to developing strong community networks across the area and the sponsorship will flag up the excellent work the University College is doing in many areas of sport.

"Of course, we hope that it will encourage recruitment to a wide range of courses but our chief aim is to work widely and broadly towards advocating sporting excellence across the board."

Harlequins Rugby League head coach, Brian McDermott, said the deal would be a huge boost for the players and staff.

“St Mary’s pride themselves on producing top level performances in all fields of sports and the word that keeps cropping up more and more is ‘excellence’, an ethos that we at Harlequins Rugby League are trying to develop and create," he said.

Phil Jones, head of youth development at Harlequins Rugby League, has worked closely with St Mary’s for the past five academic years and is very excited about the partnership.

“St Mary’s are at the forefront of sports science research, and together we are working towards developing an internationally renowned pathway performance pathway," he said.

"We’ve already seen several St Mary’s students representing their country and I hope to see many more.”

The new look Harlequins shirt will make its debut at the Twickenham Stoop this Saturday for the Super League encounter with Wigan Warriors, kick-off 5.30pm. St Mary’s University College is a University College offering a wide range of degree and other courses for both undergraduate and post graduate students.