Brighton have launched their primary schools taster programme.

They invited 460 children aged from eight to ten-years-old from ten schools to take part in coaching sessions at Waterhall.

Club press relations officer Melissa Stepney said: "It was a huge success. The idea was to give youngsters an idea of what basic handling and passing skills are needed to play rugby. We had ten coaches helping out and hopefully the children will have been bitten by the rugby bug.

"Also, we are going into four schools who couldn't make it on the day to give them six weeks of coaching. That will bring the number of children reached up to around 700.

"We want to step up the programme so that we can get a mini bus to ferry some of the youngsters who have travelling problems into us in the future."

The club intend to stage a festival at Waterhall in October involving the children.

The initiative is funded by an Awards For All grant to promote sport.

Schools who took part at the launch included St Mark's, St Martin's, Middle Street, Hertford Junior, Stanford Junior, Coombe Road, Saltdean Primary, St Bernadette's, Downs Junior and Patcham Junior.

Queen's Park, Coldean, Balfour and Westdene will be the schools to benefit from in-school coaching.