U8s -London Wasps Community Team Introduction to Contact

2nd March 2008

Mothers Day (Sunday 2 March) - A beautiful sunny Sunday morning and all the kids (approx 36) were excited, having looked forward to this day all week (some for years) - their first formal introduction to contact rugby.

Jonny Hutchings, London Wasps Community Development Officer had prepared the Coaches in a gruelling session on the previous Wednesday night. Many hadn't tackled for several years, and some still couldn't!

Not put off by this though, Jonny Hutchings kept his promise to introduce the Maidenhead U8s to the world of contact rugby.

Many eager children were looking to emulate local England and ex-Maidenhead RFC hero James Haskell. James had volunteered to attend and assist, and would have been there until his recent injury versus France. Good luck to him. He can come next time when the kids will be bigger!

After an initial inspirational team talk including Contact and Safety, Jonny got the kids thoroughly warmed up with a variety of drills including jogging, avoiding contact, press-ups, rolling on the ground and performing forward rolls - all of which they thoroughly enjoyed. The kids were ready.

The next step was to cover the safety aspects of contact rugby, starting off with teaching players to fall safely on the ground while holding a rugby ball.  This was crucial to getting the children used to safely going to ground. The session progressed onto the fundamentals of tackling and instructions on presenting and releasing the ball.

The next steps covered by Jonny were the basic principles of a side-tackle, which included positioning your head 'cheek-to-cheek' as shown above, causing no end of laughter amongst our players. 

The session progressed with a series of theory and simple descriptions, followed by practice with the coaches closely guiding throughout.

The eagerness and willing of the children throughout the entire session made the Coaches and parents proud.

During the Q&A session that followed it became apparent that one of our players, Raff Bowler, must have studied the entire manual on tackling!  Not only did he know the answer to every question, but he knew exactly what Johnny was about to cover. We suspect some 'private tuition' from Iron Man Dad Simon might be involved!

The picture shows our players demonstrating to Roger Moore (Head Coach) the effectiveness of the 'mob-attack' over the rugby tackle. Yes he is under there somewhere!

The practice session was followed by two tag rugby games, where the kids were taught how to rip the ball and off-load to their team.  This quickly progressed on to having the tagged player safely fall to the ground and setting the ball, with team players coming in for support and progression. 

The kids had a thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating session, learning the fundamental principles of contact rugby.

A huge thanks for the ongoing support from the excellent London Wasps Community Team for such an enjoyable and informative training session, as well as wishing our U8 players the best of luck in mastering these newly found skills and techniques. Jonny was presented with a well shaken bottle of champagne and we all look forward to the nest session. The children are ready for their next Highland Spring Tag Challenge at the Wasps vs Sale Sharks match - shame it's not contact!

A delighted Player of the Day Rebecca Bateson vowed to continue to show the boys who's the boss over the coming months ahead!

Jonny Hutchings adds "The two sessions at Maidenhead RFC have been great. The Wednesday night session aimed at giving the coaches an insight in to what the children would be going through over the coming months as they get introduced to contact rugby. On Sunday we were able to use these experiences and those of the numerous qualified coaches at Maidenhead RFC to ease the children through their first contact rugby session, with all having a great time in a very safe and enjoyable environment"