By any standard, the Bermuda youth rugby programme is enjoying a high measure of success.

A three-year blitz of activity has resulted in the game taking off in the Island’s schools, with hundreds of children playing most weekends and the national set-up in a position to boast a production line that is already starting to bear fruit.

Saracens, fresh from a successful yet fruitless season in England and Europe, began their Bermuda tour yesterday by contributing to that development process for the second year running, holding training sessions at four schools.

For Patrick Calow, the Bermuda Rugby Football Union’s youth development officer, however, success is measured not just by the numbers of those playing the game.

“The ultimate goal is to use sport for positive social change,” Calow said. “So we want to use rugby to see more young people graduating, staying involved in positive activity, staying out of prison; all those types of things.”

It has taken three years for Calow, the BRFU, dozens of volunteers and plenty of corporate funding to get where they are, with a national programme encompassing everything from six-year-olds playing flag football, through to a men’s, and now women’s, national team.

Schools the length of the Island are also playing a game that had little presence previously in some communities, with leagues at primary, middle and high school level. In many ways, getting this far has been the easy part.

“It’s been three years of hard work, but it requires more hard work to make sure that it doesn’t fizzle out,” Calow said. “It was hard to get people to come out and play. We’ve worked very hard to build relationships with schools and the players. Good news travels fast, as does bad news.”

If success on the field was the only motivation, then it might have been tougher, but Calow’s work for the BRFU, and with the after-school Beyond Rugby programme, has focused as much on the person as the potential athlete. “We want our players to be well rounded, to be good people, to be the best that they can, no matter what that is,” he said.

A decline in school dropout rates among those involved in youth rugby pays testament to the impact that the BRFU’s work is having.

The harsh reality of sport, however, is that success is largely defined by performances in the international arena — and Calow is not naive. Bermuda rugby has need of a self-sustaining production line that ultimately increases competition for places.

Which is not to say that Bermuda players will be given a free pass simply because they are Bermudian. Two players at a training session with Saracens yesterday, on announcing their intention to be in the national team were told: “Great, but you have to earn it.”

The pair will get the chance to prove how much they want it on Saturday, when the youth team play the first game in a feast of rugby at the National Stadium, which concludes with “The Big Game” — Saracens versus Bermuda Barbarians.

“We want them to learn that it is a real honour to represent your country,” Calow said. “That you need to apply yourself in all things to achieve that. We want to increase the player pool, and the numbers going into the national team, but have players, people, who want to be part of something bigger than themselves.”

Players in their final year of school are getting game time with the Island’s senior club teams and, with rugby sevens now a part of the Olympic Games, the need to create a larger number of players from which to choose is greater than ever.

“In terms of raising the standard, and actually improving overall, then absolutely that’s what we’re aiming for {with these programmes],” Calow said. “Definitely, some of our athletes would be great in sevens.”

The Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, where sevens has been a fixture for a number of years, certainly represent the Island’s best opportunity of qualifying for a global tournament. And the tens of thousands of dollars that Bermuda pays to have coaches from Serevi Rugby visit several times a year would suggest that the union also believes that to be the best use of its resources.

Calow, though, is not about to dismiss the 15-a-side version quite so quickly.

“Sevens can be easier, it needs fewer players, obviously, it’s not as technical. At the same time, one of the great things about rugby is that it is a sport for all shapes and sizes, and we want to be as inclusive as we can.

“Bermuda has a proud tradition in 15s, the national team has been successful and we want to keep that up.”

That is for the future, though. Right now, Calow’s focus is on a youth programme that is still in its infancy and working hard to produce better citizens as well as better players.