September training to 12 September

Well, we are now training for contact rugby and the players seem to have been waiting for the summer to end so the tackling can start. We have the joy of tackles, scrums, line outs, rucks, mauls, oh the list is endless of all the new things to be learnt. It may be uncontested scrums etc and there is no kicking as yet, but this is real rugby now. The coaches have been working hard to teach the players all these new skills and then practice them in playing games in each training session. It's scary how some of the players are so focussed on getting their man that they seem to fly through the air. Also, now we are playing 'real' rugby parents seem to concentrate on the games much more at the sidelines. It's great, if the players can focus during training sessions and enjoy what they are doing, then let's hope we can do well when we get to play other teams and get to tackle people who aren't our friends within our own squad.

We have also had 4 new players joining in on training sessions, with a couple more waiting in the wings to join, and this is before we even reach 'Try Rugby' weekend at the end of September.

Now we have started tackling, although the weather has been nice, I can't help thinking should we be doing rain dances to make the ground a bit softer for the players - not that they seem to have noticed!