Another lovely sunny Sunday morning...

I’d like to start by thanking all our helpers from Sunday; Steve for coming out of coaching retirement to help us (even more noteworthy as Steve’s son doesn’t play anymore), Rob for jumping in wholeheartedly on his first week coaching with the club, the U8’s for letting some of our U7 repeaters join them for some matchplay while we get our new U7’s up to speed, and finally, Tracy, Jo and Helen for helping out with the smaller groups during the drills and games.

And we can’t forget our kitchen volunteers; Zena, John, Pete and Rich. Each group takes its turn in the kitchen, and this is a huge money earner for the club, so thanks for putting up with the smell of bacon and sausages all morning, not sure I could without constantly eating!

So, back to the rugby! After a warm up we jumped into the 5-Ball-Pass game, where the kids have to work as a team to pass between themselves to score a team point. They soon got the hang of this, so we introduced the Tag/tackle, so when a Tag is pulled off, the ball carrier has 3 seconds to pass to a teammate. It was great to see so much running with the ball and try scoring - that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day!!

This will form the basis of their competitive matches; the only differences being forward passes aren’t allowed (we’ll introduce that rule in the next couple of weeks) and they will play on 10m x 22m pitches instead of the 10m x 10m they were using on Sunday.

I’ve mentioned before that ERRFC aren’t just about winning matches; putting the kids first and playing and enjoying the game are far more important. Also held high are rugby’s Core Values - Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportsmanship. This weeks trophy awards highlight this as we gave awards out for some excellent rugby playing, but also for behaviour, attitude and discipline.

England bags - we have several goody bags from England Rugby, and will be using these as extra “…Of The Week” awards. This week, for some great rugby playing over the last couple of weekends, and staying focussed to help our newer players, the England goody bags went to two of our U7 repeaters. Well don’t Matthew and Arthur!

Scarey - for some excellent running, try scoring and passing, this week Scarey goes to Jamie. Well done, Jamie!

Trophy - after a nervy start, where rugby almost seemed a bit too much to take in, our trophy winner showed the resolve to take some time out, make themselves comfortable with the situation, and then come back into the group and play. And play in style! Great running, passing, working as a valuable team member, this week’s trophy winner was an easy choice - well done, Ben!!

A quick Admin note… We’re now 4 weeks into the season so, if you’ve not paid your little rugby player’s membership yet, it would be really helpful if you could pay soon. Payment is easiest via the website - just go to www.errfc.com and you’ll see Payments in the Menu bar. Alternatively, please see our Team Manager, Jo, on Sunday.