Yesterday, along with the rest of the Brentwood mini teams we travelled up the A12 to visit Braintree for our second away fixture of the season. Braintree’s quite a trek but longer distance can make it even more special, but it does always give us coaches a bit of a worry as to quite how many of our team would be able to make the journey, with an early start to boot! But we needn't have worried the U7’s were well represented with 18 children making the effort, and what a pleasant surprise it was to find a club with ample parking for all of us!

Having introduced ourselves to the our U7s hosts and established the numbers we set up three pitches to rotate the games. Braintree could only field 9 kids so sticking to the 4 a side we prefer at this age Braintree A had 4 boys and Braintree B had 5 with a free rolling substitute. With our impressive turnout we were able to have 4 sides two playing Braintree and two playing each other rotating the games every ten minutes or so, so all children got the experience of playing the home side.

At this age the focus is on everyone getting a game and everyone having fun. The great thing about non-contact Tag rugby is that it gives the kids the confidence to run at the defence without fear which can lead to so really interesting passages of play. We try to enforce the basic rules and disciplines of the games, but we don’t call for knock-ons or slightly forward passes although these were a couple of passed that might have been more at home on an American football field that did warrant stopping the game, but we stop as a way to coach rather than as a turnover, we’re all still learning! We did laugh last week when a parent on the side-line moaned at one for our coaches for not enforcing offside. Yesterday, just after the start of the match one of the kids caught the ball and with wide eye’s looked at me and said, Which way am I running coach?! Brilliant, let’s not get too bogged down in the finer points of the rules, lets encourage fun, fast flowing rugby, where everyone gets a game and where we put the kids first.

So far as the final score, who knows, let’s call it a draw. What we do know is the sun shone, the kids and their families had a great mornings rugby!
See you Sunday at Brentwood 10.30.

Yours in rugby
Stuart