rugby players have clubbed together to highlight the importance of a being a blood donor after a team-mate’s daughter needed a vital transfusion.

The Gosford All Blacks team decided to have the NHS Transplants Save Lives emblem stitched on to their shirts after the five-year-old girl underwent a heart transplant last year and needed pints of donated blood in the process.

The Oxford Mail has joined forces with the National Blood Service to try to recruit 1,000 new blood donors ahead of winter, when blood stocks traditionally dip due to seasonal illnesses – and the All Blacks are backing the scheme.

Because of rules about identifying people who have received a donated organ, the young girl cannot be named, but club secretary Dave Eustice, 56, who has given almost 150 pints since he became a donor in the 1970s, said she was recovering well.

He added: “We wanted to support the Oxford Mail Gift of Life Appeal, as the operation couldn’t have been successful without blood donors.

“This year we’re proud to have the transplant emblem on our shirts as a thank you – and as a way of raising awareness of this vital service.”

The team’s new kit was supposed to be used for the first time on Saturday in the All Blacks’ match against Melksham, but only the junior kit had arrived.

The adult teams’ kit is believed to be caught in the backlog of post caused by last week’s Royal Mail strike.

The teams were allowed to use the emblem on the shirts after raising more than £11,000 with a bus pull in August last year.

Mr Eustice added: “We think having the emblem on our shirts is the right thing to do and it gives out a good message to the junior team as well.

“For us it’s a very important message, and it goes hand in hand with what we’re about. Good health, sport and doing the right thing.”

Earlier this year, the Oxford Mail ran a campaign to increase the number of Oxfordshire people on the organ donation register.

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk To join the organ donation register online you can go to oxfordmail.co.uk/news/community/givingthegiftoflife/howtoregister/