Sometimes you have sessions where all the kids click and everyone seems to make things look easy and that was completely the case this week; carrying on from last week’s catching session, we needed to hone a few of the skills whilst then concentrating on dodging and spatial awareness. We ran Red Arrows initially with a view to really test their peripheral vision by starting with 2 at a time from each team (normally we start with 1 and progress to 2); from the get-go, the players were on it and we soon had up to 4 running from each team at the same time. This is by far the most advanced/congested version of this game that we have played and they kids were awesome. To change this game a little, we introduced a pass before the next player could go; again this was something that we have never done before in this game and it wasn’t long before we had up to 3 balls being passed simultaneously from each team. Absolutely superb.

We then moved on to Soldiers (which the eagle eyed supporter will notice that it’s basically a rebranded version of Pass the Parcel) which introduced a soldiers “step” to have all the players walking in a straight line whilst passing from left to right; most got this so we’ll look to develop this in future sessions. To finish this session, we moved back to the defence related drill designed for the whole team to be ready at a given situation; this is a game that has worked well with the current U7s with the slight difference being that we included the players putting the ball down (scoring a try) and piking the ball up also. Whilst this started a bit stop start, with the inclusion of one of the teams having a rest, it meant the whole game ran smoothly. The idea with this game is that we’ll be able to shout defence, and all the players will line up ready for the oncoming attack of the other team.

In the micros there was a huge emphasis of ball handling and dodging, which included walking and catching the ball themselves; core skills are paramount at this age and it was great seeing every micro catching their own ball; the dodging relay was great also with them already running with the ball in 2 hands which, again, is a core skill.

With the cups this week, another amazing effort from Freddie (far left) in the micros saw him defend the kicking cup that he won in the previous week and a big well done to Chloe for the best passing that week.

Ted (left) won the teamwork cup demonstrating some great shouts of PASS when ready to receive the ball and consistently helping out the receivers of the pass during Red Arrows, Scott (centre) won the awesome cup. Scott story is a great one, he originally started with the micro’s this season to get accustomed with rugby (having never played before) and moved into the U6s this week. His listening, attentiveness and overall attitude was superb; well done Scott. The listening cup was won this week by Seth; again, he is another player that we are fortunate to have, his skills develop with each week, he is always smiling and was so focussed this week that 2 coaches, independently of each other, nominated him.

Well done to all the cup winners this week in the Micros and U6s.