Wales captain Ryan Jones, Wales kicking coach Neil Jenkins and Wales internationals Andrew Bishop and Craig Mitchell spent an evening providing hands-on coaching and playing tips to junior and senior players at Tonna.

The visit was the result of the club being crowned the inaugural overall winner of the SWALEC Community Awards, launched last autumn.

The club was recognised for its exceptional commitment to active participation, community engagement and energy efficiency efforts over the past season. In addition to the top class training and a question and answer session, the club were also presented with £1000 in Webb Ellis vouchers to purchase kit and equipment essential to high quality and safe training.

SWALEC Brand Ambassador, Ryan Jones commented, “We all started playing at clubs like this so it’s important to support these grassroots clubs as best we can. The SWALEC Community Awards is a great way of doing that and we all really enjoyed taking part in the training sessions and meeting everyone at Tonna.”

Neil Jenkins added, “It’s the ultimate honour to coach your country but grassroots rugby clubs are the lifeblood of the game in Wales and it’s great to be able to give something back to those clubs.”

Club secretary, Stuart James, submitted the club’s nomination into the SWALEC Community Awards competition and talked of the importance of reaching out to the community – Tonna RFC currently opens its doors to the local Women’s institute, darts and pool teams, holds many wedding receptions and parties and prides itself on hosting the Tonna RFC Community Carnival, which has been running for 40 years.

James, who has been associated with the club for 15 years, commented at the training session: “This is a fantastic achievement for the club and community. We work very hard to ensure rugby football is played by many and that the clubhouse remains a community hub, bringing the locals into the rugby family.

“To have Welsh international players and coaches here has been excellent. The players have thoroughly enjoyed themselves and the new Webb Ellis equipment we received has taken us up to the next level.”

Rob Kemeys coaches the Tonna Under 10 side, where his son Morgan is a team member. He said, “When I contacted the players and their parents to tell them about the visit, the excitement in their responses was tangible. It’s been a huge boost for the club and thoroughly enjoyable for the children.”

As a leading energy supplier, SWALEC strives to support the communities that support them and, together with the WRU, created this initiative to reward three rugby clubs for their commitment to active participation, community relations and energy efficiency and named one club for displaying efforts in all three categories.

A WRU and SWALEC selection panel had the difficult task of selecting the four winning teams and eventually selected Bridgend Sports RFC, Builth Wells RFC and Gwernyfed RFC as category winners, joining Tonna on the roll of honour.

Alan Williams, Director of Energy Sales for SWALEC, commented: “The SWALEC brand is delighted to provide the opportunity to showcase and reward rugby clubs across Wales who demonstrated outstanding commitment to the sport, their local communities and energy efficiency.”

WRU Group Chief Executive, Roger Lewis, said of the initiative, “The WRU is well aware of the effort, expertise and enthusiasm injected into Welsh club rugby by the army of volunteers that make such a difference to so many people the length and breadth of the country, and we are thrilled that this will be recognised by our National community partner SWALEC in the form of this fantastic initiative to reward clubs who go the extra mile.”