RFU Tournament

The Hampshire RFU Rugby Festival at Petersfield RFC was a perfect opportunity for our Under 7’s squad to put their training into practice - and what a great performance it was!

The tournament used the typical Mini’s “team” configuration of a “squad” of up to 12 players split into two “teams” of 6, who play consecutively, and then join the two “teams” scores for a “squad” result (still with me?). The great thing about this formula is there really is no benefit in picking an A and B team as the scores from both matches count for your result - which perfectly matches the ERRFC mentality; it’s all about the team and playing good rugby as much as the end result!

Both teams soon got over any pre-match nerves, and were quickly scoring tries and taking tags - it was absolutely brilliant to watch! As the day went all the kids got more and more confident, and by the end of the day they were playing like seasoned vets, passing the ball nicely, supporting each other going forward and taking some try-saving TAGs! That’s most of rugby’s Principles Of Play right there!!

It was particularly pleasing to receive comments after matches about what a nice group we had, and what a pleasure they were to play against - and that was from opposition coaches, parents and match officials. Well done one and all!

At the New Milton tournament back in October, we suffered some heavy defeats despite trying to play proper rugby. I’m very pleased to report we finished 4th in our group at Petersfield, and only very narrowly lost our semi-final - this was such a huge leap forwards in performance terms, and really made all our coaches, managers and referees very proud to be associated with our squad. The kids' medals were thoroughly deserved :-)

Let’s hope the momentum continues at Overton this weekend!!