The Festival Preparations Begin!

Over the last few weeks we have played a lot of rugby! We've been to festivals and played many home and away fixtures against many different teams. This has allowed the boys to gain lots of match play experience which has been great for their development. I'm sure you will all have noticed that the boys' play has really moved on; they're now much faster, more competitive and more aggressive! However a few bad habits have also crept in! They seem to have a tendency to stray offside, sometimes they fight their own team mates for passes and they tend to run into each other! So on Sunday we decided to take it back to basics.

After the usual warm up and bull-dog we split into teams and played slowly. The coaches worked in pairs, one to referee and one to spot problems. When an issue was spotted the coaches stopped play and ran short drills to try and train through the issue. We ran pop passing drills, passing down the line and tag drills. I think the boys reacted really well to this and the coaches saw a marked improvement by the end of the session.

The stand out performer from the session was Finley Whitehouse who was awarded with Player of the Week. Finely worked really hard, concentrated throughout the session and was a real team-player. Well done Fin!

The coaches will probably run similar sessions over the coming weeks in preparation for the Newbury mini festival at the end of the month (insert date here). The festival will probably be the last rugby weekend of the season and we'd really like to go out with a bang by playing at our very best! Please also be aware that Kirsty and Sarah are actively seeking volunteers to help out on the day of the festival. Please put your best foot forward and agree to help make this a fantastic and memorable day for the boys!

As per my comments on Sunday please also consider joining the coaching team. Next season is the last season we play non contact rugby. When we become u9s and start teaching the players contact I'd really like a high ratio of coaches to players. Ideally about 1 coach to every 4 players. If we grow the coaching team over next season then hopefully that 1:4 ratio will be achievable. RFU training courses are available both at the club and locally throughout the region so you don't need to worry about getting thrown in at the deep end!