A great start to the season

Finally the first competitive game of the season. I think they were all looking forward to this. I asked the players before the games what they wanted to get out of today. The biggest response was to play a match, so I think we can thankfully tick that off the achievements list for this week.

Colchester are a big club, they have always had a large number of players. Dave had been in contact with their manager in the week and so the plan was for two teams 1 all billericay and 1 mixed, playing against colchester players.

I arrived as always a little bit early but was surprised to see other bees already putting boots on, ordering coffee and tucking its bacon rolls. I had a little car park envy initially when I saw they had 3 car parks but the envy subsided when I saw the car park attendants, even with 3 car parks you still need people to manage the parking.

We started the warm up slowly as the kids arrived, with it being the first season of tackling I am trying to ensure we get as much practice/warm up of tackling as possible. I am very pleased with how the players have taken to tackling. It is a big change from tag and although we have had 6 weeks of training it is in competitive games that we get the chance to really gauge our development.
I disappeared for a long walk helping find the under 11 team for one of the under 11 players and parent and returned to be greeted by all the players ready thanks to Dave and Danny.
Rather than try and remember every step, pass, tackle, try of the game I thought I would focus on what went well and what we want to work.

Enthusiasm and energy and discipline
The enthusiasm is always there, as I have said the desire to play a competitive match was the most requested objective for the players. The ongoing objective is always to focus the enthusiasm in the right direction. So avoiding injuring each other before the game is desirable, and one we can work on.
One aspect of the game philosophy that I wish to instil in all the players is respect for the ref and officials.
As a junior player seeing your team moved 10 yards backwards for arguing with the ref quickly taught us as a team that the referee's are not perfect and we just have to accept and adapt. I think now is a good time for us to start to teach the players this, so it will be 1 of the many area of focus for the season.

Tackling
There were some great tackles made. The confidence to tackle is still an area that will require continuous development and coaching. A fair number of players are showing great confidence in trying to tackle players even when the opposition are bigger than them.
The technique is great considering how little time it is since they first started tackling. There are coaching elements that we will continually focus on this season but generally today showed a great foundation to work from.

Running with ball
The newer direction that the RFU take is to emphasis the game as a game of avoidance. If you can avoid everyone then you should be able to score a try. This is very difficult to do all the time and this is where tackling, support play, passing come into their own. Today there was some great running and avoidance, considering we have not specifically trained side stepping or changing direction while running it is a skill that many of the kids have developed very well.

Passing
Some good passing both after the tackle and before the tackle. There was some great examples of passing to try and create space or create an opportunity. There were also some great passes after being tackled both from standing position and from the ground.

As I am always biased I have asked additional people to provide their feedback on the day. It is good to get different perspectives as when refereeing the games its difficult to see the whole picture as well as individual performances as such here is Danny's feedback.

So first contact game of the season and the training definitely paid off. Some real dedication to the tackles from every player. Teamwork is always key & it was great to see everyone talking tactics on the pitch and arranging the plays. A few things we must remember during the games. Playing safely is essential to everyones enjoyment, whilst its great to enjoy the contact, playing in a manner that is safe for all players is key. The second thing is having great discipline, keeping control of your excitement and being respectful of the opposition goes a long way in the overall fun we all get from the day. 
Lots for us to focus on in the coming season but overall some really encouraging progress in the development of a great team.
So as such I am sure you will all agree overall a good first weekend of competitive games with tackling. All the kids seemed to come off the pitch happy. It has given us a good gauge on what level we are are at, what we are good at and what we need to work on.

And here is Dave's thoughts of the day
Great start to the season for the first game. Everyone got stuck in and loads of tackles being committed to quickly getting back to their feet and stuck in again. The team I had really jelled, boosted with numbers from Colchester you would never have known they didn't all play together regularly.

We gave the player of the week to Harrison, he showed some great commitment to tackling within the games . I think all the kids performed well and hopefully they all had fun.
Next week we have training at home so see you all there.