U7s '4 nations' championship!

The session consisting of a Bulldog warm up, quick tip on how to defend against the attacker going down the line and then a 4-team, mini “4 nations” championship – which proved to be incredibly close: Italy” beating “Scotland” in a Champion-decider by a single try in the last second, and “England” doing exactly likewise against “Wales” in an equally close 3rd place play off.

Learning points were : stepping out to the side line to prevent the attacker going around you and the offside rule.

Colin had the luxury of watching from the side-lines, whilst our 2 excellent coach-refs ran two games simultaneously, noticed the following areas that we can work on over the coming weeks:

1) Getting behind your own player with the ball
2) Positioning – (i) V formation at the start and, more noticeably, (ii) not crowding when waiting to receive a pass, having to avoid running into teamates etc.
3) No contact – there were a few push/barge-outs (of which my own son was most at fault!) and a few full contact tackles (including a near-perfect diving tackle from the rear – they’ll be a great team at U9s!)
4) Not getting into offside positions… which is, in reality, part of point 1), getting behind the player with the ball, on your own side of the pitch.

Really good things that Colin saw from all the teams:

1) No arguing with the ref.
2) Excellent evasion – fast running, swerving, dummying.
3) Some excellent tagging.
4) Good captaining from all 4 team captains – especially keeping the defensive line in the “Italy” and “Scotland” teams.
5) Very, very good support running.
6) Handing back tags.
7) Very good commitment and competitive effort. Players keeping going even if they’d lost and no sulking.

All in all another excellent session as the boys continue to shape up into a fabulous team - bring on the Newbury Festival