Thanks, will keep a closer eye on it.

My U7's continued their decent run of form with a good performance against a smaller Stanley Rangers side last night in another midweek friendly. The Rangers lads were a bit less organised and weren't really able to get much go forward in the face of pretty good defense from our lads and they spent much of the game inside their own half as a result. Attack was pretty tricky with it pouring down before hand and steady rain through a fair bit of the game but both teams gave it their all and appeared to have much more fun and get more out of it than they would have done in a training session.

We have moved over from defense in training to attack, and we tried a couple of times to put the ball through a couple of pairs of hands before hitting the runner but a combination of the enthusiastic Rangers moving up quickly, the referee not going back particularly far and the wet weather it wasn't easy - the lads panicked a touch and couldn't do what a few of them had been doing in training with no opposition. Still, something to work on next week.

oooooh

gets worse the older you get, glad he's OK tho

We (Raiders U7's) have had 2 games since the mid season break - Elland and Cas Panthers, both away.

Elland last week was a bit of an eye opener, with one of our lads having a "try" disallowed because of a double movement and one because he put the ball down over the dead ball line after breaking through and being in the clear - ah well. Elland had a couple of good players and put on the customary offloads like just about all teams, with the usual mixed results - they were a bit over aggressive though and tried to bully there way through parts of the game. After being 4-0 down early doors, as seems the norm for our lads, we got it back and lost out by 1 score in the end. A much improved performance from our lads from earlier in the season, with them starting to run onto the ball with more speed and defending as more of a unit.

Today we went to Cas Panthers, a side who unlike most sides have almost a structured passing game rather than offloading the ball anywhere in the tackle. They had the odd dummy runner, put a couple of passes together and even a drop off/inside ball and really look the part - the fact they passed it seemed to confuse our lads who were a bit reluctant to move in as we have been working on - so it game them plenty of room. Anyway, big effort from 2 very different teams (our boys are coached not to offload this year) and refereed very well by a young lad - our lads really enjoyed it and it shows we are going in the right direction in our first season.

Dudley Hill next week, so we will play a team of our smaller/less experienced boys and let them all have a good run out.

I am absolutely staggered that somebody can come onto this forum and post this comment. The game was an entertaining local derby, played by two teams who put everything into producing a great advert for junior rugby. There was a handbags incident which lasted about 10 seconds, but what about the other 49 minutes and 50 seconds? Rather than posting anything positive, and there was plenty on show, you’ve come home from the game and spouted off about the only negative. Junior rugby is a great participation sport for youngsters and we should be spending time shouting the merits of the game from the rooftops and not trying to kick the game down at any opportunity

Just for the record sweetie – although you may have heard somebody shouting, it certainly didn’t come from our touch line manager

Thanks for bringing some sanity back to this thread with a well thought out and reasonable post about junior RL.

The same poster also tried a 'subtle' accusation towards me for allegedly not forwarding transfer papers, without being in view of any facts at all, waiting for an apology for that one.