When checking my emails this week I realised that in the hectic nature of the half term break last week, I had failed to send the report. As such, I have amalgamated the two reports into a bumper edition for this week. Over the 2 weeks of training at home, we have worked on some vital skills that we thought would add some important refinements to the players’ rugby foundation. We have included passing, evasion, support, team work and building pressure.

11th February

With a fair breeze and a crisp, cold day we began the session by taking a leaf out of Ruislip’s book and running through a boot camp style warm up. This helped to ensure that everyone was warm enough to go through some passing drills. With players lining up in lanes to develop straight running and holding a good line, we ran through a fun passing practice. This required players to work together as a team and to know when to move forward quickly to bring their team mates into the game. More importantly, it reminded the players that they often need to work harder without the ball to make sure that they support their team mates and remain on side.

We maintained the lane running practice but developed good habits for player handling skills with the ball held in two hands. We moved this session on with evasion practice and reminding players of the techniques they can use to make good line breaks. It was great to see all the players using and developing their side steps, swerves, weaves, dummies and spins. Often faster players learn bad habits of how to score at this level by running backwards around the pitch until they find space to run past the other team. If your first instinct is always to run backwards to try and find space then you will immediately take all your support out of the game even if you manage on occasion to run out of trouble. As a team, forward movement is actually far more effective because it keeps your team on side and allows teammates to give support. This clearly becomes more important when the players begin contact rugby and rucking etc but good habits must be forged from strong foundations at the earliest opportunity.

We rounded out training with matches to consolidate these skills and bulldog to unwind before well-deserved hotdogs. Congratulations go to Nate for Best Effort because he worked really hard throughout the entire session, showing great listening, dedication and commitment. Plaudits go to Rory for being awarded Player of the Week, which he won for being the key supporting player, scoring numerous tries and also his superb tackling display.

18th February

On a much calmer and sunnier Sunday morning than the previous week, we gathered again on the far side of the Harrow grounds to find a higher grass to mud ratio. With the relative warm temperature, we were able to take the warm up more steadily this week and really work on some core exercises that form the basis of some of the key warm ups from England Rugby’s Activate campaign. This is definitely worth a google if you are interested in how we can reduce injuries in rugby through effective activation and warm up. We spent a good chunk of time on these core exercises and concentrated entirely on form over frequency. Good form is essential for any exercise at this age group and we will look to always monitor this accordingly.

After the warm up, we sprang into action with obstacle course team races. As with last week, we concentrated on running with the ball in two hands over and round a series of obstacles. With the added difficulty of passing to coaches, we developed the drill to test player decision making. With a remarkable run of dead heats, finally one team won through but with the narrowest of margins that really required a photo finish.

We rounded out the first half of the training session with a game of King/Queen of the Ring before joining the U8s and mixing up the players from both age groups for a series of games.

I stepped back from refereeing to be able to watch the games in turn. It was excellent to see how all the players from the U8s and U7s stepped up their game and at a glance it was nigh on impossible to tell which players were from which age group. However, when looking more closely, the two key differences were in running and passing. The U8s often play in games of limited tackle count before a mandatory turnover (like the six tackles rule from Rugby League), which meant that they were passing before being tackled to create space and try and redirect the attacking lines. In comparison, the U7s were taking the ball into tag situations and then passing back once tackled. This difference meant the U8s were more dynamic in possession and found some great space but also threw the ball away with wild passes on several occasions. However, this gives us something to work on and we can look to improve our passing before the tackle going forward. The second difference was in running lines because the U8s relied on their relative speed and resorted to running backwards to try and avoid a tackle. This often resulted in the U8 players being shepherded into touch or losing possession through a forward pass. In comparison, the U7s tended to run more accurate running lines with strong forward progress from every player. I was so proud! Especially when this led to fluid, superbly supported teamwork tries – Great work U7s and next time we should try and keep the age groups separate so that we can really show off our team skills.

Congratulations go to Louie for Best Effort and winning Bulldog this week, while Player of the Week was Nacho who must have tackled every player at least twice during the fast-paced games and also scored some immense tries. I look forward to seeing you all again next week.

Johnny