A late arrival but an enjoyable 2 games against Upminster

Sunday arrived and the rain greeted me as I arrived at the club. Thank fully unlike the hundreds of people at the club on Sunday it only made a fleeting visit. The fact that there was no sign of our opposition at 10.15 did start to make me worry but thank fully they arrived slightly delayed.

The extra time beforehand did give us a bit of time to introduce walking rugby as part of the warm up.
The idea of walking rugby as a training exercise is so that the players can practice their tackle technique. Slowing the game down means that the players have the time t think about how they should be tackling in order to bring the player to the ground. You will be pleased to know we are giving baby shark a break. The next few weeks we will be encouraging the players to use their body weight in order to either bring the player down to the ground or stop them moving forward. I think you will agree we saw the benefits of this straight away in both games the players were bringing down the player with the ball more frequently. When they could not bring them down they were stopping them moving forward much more.

Bringing in both teams at the start of the game, I asked them what the aim of the day was, a few answers were given but thankfully at least a couple of players said what I was looking for which was “To have Fun”.

Both games were competitive we did not dominate and neither did Upminster so I think the kids definitely enjoy these games. Both sets of players were easy to referee, there were a few occasions where I gave both sides the benefit of the doubt and I think the players were Ok with this. I think the Upminster head coach would have preferred us to have video replay but no referee is ever going to get every decision right.

Both teams learnt a few valuable lessons, a good one for both sides was that you should be putting the ball down over the try line as soon as you can. Another good lesson was keeping hold of the ball once you have been tackled.

Funnily enough I was on a RFU first aid course on Saturday so was hoping to avoid having to use any of the skills and knowledge I had learnt., Luckily we had only a few injury stoppage and nothing too serious. Also on the course was Dave (Niall's Dad) so we have now have 3 trained first aiders in me, Dave and Team manager Dave. It by no means make us heath professionals but it gives us a level of knowledge that will help when needed.

Continued thanks to Danny for helping with coaching but unfortunately it was his son Ryan who wins Coaching and comedy award of the day. After the first game we had a team discussion about the game and Ryan took the opportunity to tell the other players that to be better they should not be scared of tackling the girl who was playing for Upminster.

Hopefully everyone had fun.
Next week we are away at Chingford, we will send out details later in the week.