Anyone attend the Embed the Pathway session at Wakefield yesterday?

Some interesting stuff and plenty food for thought

No I was busy, though I must say I'm strongly opposed to the notion that somehow no rep rugby until u15s is a good thing. That combined with saying an extended CPD programme replaces this and the idea of volunteer coaches profiling their players and feeding back to the rfl is barking. They ought to save their pennies rather than buying 'embed the pathway' jackets, bags, ipads and nice lunches!

I got the impression from our secretary,that it was irrlevant who your opponents were.
Basically you have one postponement allowed to be used in the barla cup,but it carries forward with you each round you remain in the cup.Once you are out of the cup the postponement has been used.So in effect you can use the postponement 4 times.

I am still under the impression the YJARL have been told by the RFL (after being approached by BARLA) that YJARL are not to penalise any team for their participation in the BARLA national (and any future) cups.
However I do understand that they are sometimes known for making up their own rules when the situation suits

Im complaining, i never got an Ipad !!

there will be a lot of oppostition to the RFLs plans, for some Rep rugby is the be all and end all for everything, but when you look at the facts and figures they present, you can see why they are trying to address the drop out rates and the reasons for kids dropping out at age 14 and 15 preodiminantly.

Teams having to postpone fixtures or have blank weekends because 6 or8 of there squad are away with rep teams, players having to choose between training with there club or scholarship team.

problem is that kids are identified at 10-12, get into these squads at 13 -14and stay in, yet ones who develop at 14-16 struggle to break in to the existing set ups.

The whole concepts need re-assessing, ETP may not be the right way going forward but at least they are looking at a different approach.

Im sure we all know kids who stood out head and shoulders above everyone, made every rep team, scholarship. Academy etcy etc but are no longer playing or are in a pub team ?

That's the plan apparently, for head coaches to be given ipads to profile their players.

Rep Rugby is certainly not the be all and end all for me though I began coaching on service area and scholarship 10 years ago and they were a great environment for both developing players and coaches. The reason they have been scrapped isn't because that's the best thing for developing players but because they've lost the funding. Yes I've seen many players enter at rep u13s and never make the step to pro Rugby, but service areas and scholarships aren't the reason for this, it's just the nature of the beast of the standard that's required. On the flip side I coached an u13 SA team that included Liam Sutcliffe, Jordan baldwinson, Micky learmonth, brad day to name a few.

Other sports have rep programmes, it's good for players to be exposed to this environment. Take a lad I coach at club level now, also a very talented BMX racer and been asked by British cycling to represent his country. As our games have moved to Sunday's and he races on Sundays I've had a job convincing him that rep opportunities will start to happen in Rugby. Thankfully he's stayed with us though could easily have been lost.

End of the day Seth it comes down to the common decency of Stanningley as a team.

I would prefer to take my chances and play for victory . However how many can honestly say that they wouldnt be tempted in being gifted 2pts against the hull sides , crigg , east leeds etc later on in the season.

Or if it guaranteed a certain set of circumstances that benefited your club.

so the solution is plain and simple. Dont punish success . Can you imagine this in any other sport ?

As financialtimes as said though if you stomp your feet hard enough you should be ok. Not the best prep for Oulton is it but best of luck from all of us mate,

Just a quickie .

Anyone in the know as to why Hunslet Warriors have vanished of the under 14s fixtures?
They had a game this weekend thats now gone, but its not even marked as postponed the YJL website have completely removed the name and onky a blank space exists.

Cas panthers 14s beat dewsbury Celtic 12-18 in a tough season opener.

Both teams defended really well but why oh why are u14s playing on a pitch which was about 60 yard by 30 when there is a perfectly good full size field at the side of it.teams will find it tough to find room if this pitch if it is continued to be used for there home games.

It may restrict teams that like to move the ball about but I'm not so sure it helps the development of there own players!!!!

In the Barla cup u14s

Siddal 34 -12 Thatto Heath.

Next up in cup for Siddal - East Hull at Siddal.

Are there no rules about minimum size of pitch?

That will be very tough to call!!!

It used to be 80 metres by 50 where possible.

Oulton Vikings 16 - waterhead 14 in BARLA cup.

Stanley Rangers U9s first game of season vs Drig. Stanley picking up the win 9 tries to 0. Very mature performance from the kids outstanding defence.

Good result that Seth - who you got next?

Cheers, well done to you guys at Siddal too. East Leeds for us in Quarters i'm told.

Heard West Hull U14 won 40-0 at Crigglestone

Yes they did - were absolutely superb all over the park today . Good luck to 'em - good set of lads/parents/coaches too .

It certainly seems that the power as certainly moved from East to West in the Humber Area.

A fantastic team display from the hull lads throughout and certainly highlighted Criggs weaknesses. The best team bar none I have ever seen my son play against. And the parents spectators and club officials coaches etc did the game proud.

Whether or not 40-0 wad a true reflection it was certainly the finsl score and some of Criggs biggest gunns were kept out.

2 weeks Crigg are back at Hull in the league, I know of around 6 lads who are chomping at the bit already.

Honestly folks I have never seen a group of talented teams like this before and if you are at a loss as to what to do on a sunday mid morning get yourself fown to a local team in this league and put a few quid behind the bars.

In years to come these are the future.

Sorry forgot , well done Seth good to see another YJL team progress. I hope you can pull off a shock . I know you will do Oulton proud.

Cheers muttley appreciate that. With the team east Leeds have built and recruited they may well be a step too far for us. Couldn't be more proud though reaching the last 8 of the Yorkshire cup and now national cup, we've a great squad though we're probably a couple of players short at the moment to kick on even further.

We (Oulton Under 8's) started the season well against a very young Swillington side - many of them playing a year up, it was a bit of a mis-match really although they didn't give up. Much better playing under this season rules when errors result in a turnover - will be interesting how some of the teams who threw the ball absolutely anywhere cope with these, although we do have a couple of boys who run straight into touch - and as a team we have a tendency to try and run round the defense rather than through it.

Our timing was still well off, we tried and put a couple of dummy runners in towards the end of last year but the lads lines' and timing were wrong - but improved at training last night so fingers crossed they keep improving.

Does anybody else have any suggestions for teaching them to keep them away from the edges? Had a game in training last night, taking off players who ran straight for touch and this seemed to work but come Sunday I think we could have the same problem again.

This week we have East Leeds away, so no idea what to expect as we didn't play them last season.

I wouldn't even entertain working on dummy runners in training or in matches as it confuses the hell out of them and takes their concentration away from what mini/mod rugby should be about which is doing the basics well. Through games I teach play the ball, start points at first receiver, dummy half pass, moving on to the ball and later introduce a simple plus 1 (short pass). That combined with speed, agility, balance along with catch, grip, carry and tackling is as far as it should go.

As for going into touch all you can do is reinforce that its ok to get tackled and not to score on every play as its a learning process that they will eventually get. You could also use a conditioned game where by the attacking team have unlimited tackles until they make an error/go in to touch, which is more of a positive message about what youre looking for than taking the players off the pitch. Failing that its an electric fence around the pitch!

Do what I do with my 9's and put barbed wire down either side of the field!!

I am introducing dummy running and miss balls in training some of the kids are really taking to it, some struggle.

I am also bringing in first man plays as they all now have the basic ability to catch, pass, drop off etc although we do not use them in a match until I say, usually 3 or 4 minutes before full time when it is not going to have too detrimental an effect on the result should it all go wrong.