Raiders Under 7's went to West Bowling yesterday and played another good all round side who had a few good players but one outstanding one who was too quick for us to handle. We weren't quite on the ball defensively like the previous Thursdays friendly when we tackled extremely toughly against Shaw Cross and West Bowling took full advantage.

The younger/smaller lads got more game time yesterday and played really well so that was very pleasing to see.

We are still struggling with the offload rule though, rightly or wrongly we made the decision not let the lads throw offloads at the moment but other teams seem to encourage it - and given the nature of the rule they basically have a "free play" as its completely risk free offloading this year. We concede at least 2 or 3 of tries per game from offloads, some of them good and some of them not so good by the other team - but the success rate for offloads I would estimate at about 1 in 5 or 6 maybe, with the attacking team just getting the ball back. Throw the ball anywhere and if it goes to your player (even after bobbling about) then you score 6 or 7 times out of 10 because all the defenders naturally make a bee line for the tackle at this age.....

Can anybody confirm that the rule about 6 tackles is only for the under 7's (year 2), as it says in rule 7b:

"at t he youngest participation age, each team must complete a full set of six including errors....."

So are we correct to assume that knock on's and running into touch are taken into account in the under 8's onwards? Or that when they get to the next age band "mod" it changes?

thanks

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.