Datchworth Rugby Football Club
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Datchworth Rugby Football Club Datchworth Rugby Football Club MINI MATTERS – Week 1 Sunday 2rd September 2018 Hello, to all Datchworth, Mini Section Coaches, Managers, Players, Parents and Supporters, Well here we go again! We have just started our 49th season at Datchworth Rugby Club. Last season we were frustrated to lose 5 weekends to bad weather, so we are all hoping for some better luck for this season. We look forward to the new season with our new match-shirts and with good player numbers in every Mini age-group. Over the summer break several our coaching team have attended and secured the new England Rugby Coaching Award which will add depth and some new ideas to our coaching knowledge in several age-groups. The Mini Section season will follow a familiar pattern although we find ourselves playing away quite a lot over the first half of the season. In addition, many will notice some new training equipment in the container along with a chance to play on the new RFU funded Artificial Grass Pitch at Cheshunt Rugby Club. I will look forward to seeing you all over the weeks and months ahead and I am sure we will have another great season at Datchworth. Mini Section 2018/19 Season Aims: • To provide a high quality, safe and inclusive environment for young players to learn how to play Rugby Union. • To teach and embrace the age applicable laws, spirit and culture of Rugby Union • To give every Mini Section Rugby Player between the ages of 5 and 12 the chance to participate in regular structured training sessions, balanced Rugby Fixtures, Festivals, Tournaments and Tours. Datchworth Rugby Football Club Datchworth Rugby Football Club • To promote our Club and to maintain a constant flow of capable young rugby players through the Club ideally providing squads of 22+ players to Youth Section at U13. • To encourage and give every player the chance to participate in Rugby Union to the best of their ability. • To celebrate success and be proud to be part of the proud legacy of a high achieving Village Club! U6s and U7s Datchworth joint training Session The new season got off to a great start for the U6/U7 age groups, with the sun shining and plenty of new faces trying rugby for the first time or progressing from Little Ruggers. We had 20 players across the age groups which was really positive for the season considering how many of the usual players were unavailable this week. We started the morning with a gentle passing relay to get warmed up whilst everyone arrived. This was followed by a few rounds of stuck in the mud which was played at a frantic pace, aided by the dry pitch. We will make the most of conditions while they last! Our next exercise was the try scoring relay where we aim to practice grounding the ball with both hands and picking it up again whilst running. Both tricky skills, but important within tag rugby and all the players did really well. We then ran a passing drill to practice ball handling and running into space. The U7s showed they have clearly been training over the summer break with a really slick performance and the younger players really rose to the challenge of quite a technical exercise. Finally, we finished with everyone's favourite game - Bulldog. Winners this week included Archie, Benji, Jessica, Samuel G and Millie and the first timers soon got the hang of looking for gaps and running through them. We have a brand-new player of the week trophy this season and the coaches were delighted to award it to someone who consistently performs at a high level and this week displayed superb passing and was also in the winning groups in both rounds of Bulldog. Congratulations to Benji. Many thanks also to the support of the parents who helped on Sunday morning for a great start to the year. Datchworth Rugby Football Club Datchworth Rugby Football Club U8s Datchworth Training Session It’s was great to be back in Datchworth and the sun was out to welcome us back. Our new u8s were clearly excited to be back and with a bigger pitch and team size to keep them interested, so it was straight down to business. After a short warm up, we went straight into some skills focused around passing at the breakdown to get the ball out wide. Once the kids got the hang of it, we moved this into a game situation were the kids had to pass and pass again after the tag was made. On the whole, it all worked well. Player of the week went to Lenny who always seems to put himself in exactly the right place to impact the game. A special mention goes to Bo for great running skills (we may need to put lead in his boots) and our new boy Finley who listened early well and then did exactly what was asked of him. U9s Datchworth Training Session We had a good turnout for our first training session. We focussed on two key areas - work rate and discipline. We worked on fitness by doing sprint exercises and drills that involved carrying the rugby ball and changing direction. The children also played netball rugby. We also revisited the basics of tackling from our ‘introduction to contact rugby’ sessions at the end of last season and the children took it in turns to use the tackle bag. Congratulations to Theo, our first player of the week this season! U10s Datchworth Training Session Welcome back everyone... and hello to our new faces. Really positive first session with our new Datchworth U10s - everyone seemed to blow the summer cobwebs away; putting Fortnite to one side as we concentrated on a refresh of tackling and built into rucking body positions moving the kids between a Game and Skill zone. Energy levels didn't drop which was great to see and there was some great movement, lots of tries and points awarded for technique and body position. Congratulations to Aiden, player of the week at his first session at Datchworth session - I know all the coaches saw lots of other great play and behaviour. Datchworth Rugby Football Club Datchworth Rugby Football Club U11s Datchworth Training Session It was great to be back at Datchworth to begin the 2018/19 campaign. The boys had clearly “summered well” as there was a lot of huffing and puffing during even during the warm up! The theme of the session was on improving our passing skills focusing on accuracy of pass and keeping the body square to the target. Everyone put in a great effort considering the hot weather and Tom was given the man of the session continuing his excellent work from last season through to this year. U12s Datchworth Training Session The new under U12’s started out today with a reasonable turn out today despite a few people still on holiday. We had enough players to practice in the sun getting used to some of the U12 rules including 12-a-side teams and a second row in the scrum. We started off with a chat about the season, some fitness work, ball handling and then built up to rehearsing a full line up of forwards rucking and backs moves. George put in a notable performance arriving well after 11am and surely placing an early marker down for the Holt court! YOUTH NEWS – Week 1 U13s Datchworth Training Session The U13s assembled for the first time as a Youth Squad on Sunday and we were delighted to see three fresh faces; Joshua, Joey and Oliver will all be fantastic new additions to our squad. With only a few weeks to get in shape for an early friendly with Welwyn we have lots to work on. The tackle refresh was a good reminder of the basics but with competitive scrums introduced this year the forward boys approach and achievements in the first session was encouraging. We will look forward to hopefully seeing the full squad together on Sunday. Girls Rugby at Datchworth This Sunday was designed to be a gentle intro back in to the game. We will up the intensity a bit with each session in preparation for our first matches on 23rd September. I was really pleased overall, and I think we have a great group of players who have a lot of potential. Grace - Made great progress in being able to receive a pass running a pace. This will be a key strength for her in attack. She did particularly well in the warm up games stealing bibs and avoiding being caught, demonstrating great awareness which is extremely useful during matches. Datchworth Rugby Football Club Datchworth Rugby Football Club Jess - Made some great observations when we were talking about how we could improve their success with some of the games they were playing. Jess was confident moving forward with the ball with some strong runs and you could see her passing improve during the afternoon. Lily - Showed huge improvement during the session. Lily is still very new to rugby and will have a big learning curve but we’ve already seen some areas where she will do very well. She’s a very strong runner with the ball and will definitely be someone who makes good progress for us up the middle of the field. She also has a very useful boot which we can put to good use. Ruby - Great running lines in attack and she has a real ability to slip through the defence.