We had the kids out for the first training session last night. I had about twenty U16s which is pretty good as the high school season hasn't finished yet and most of the boys have exams too. They are a good bunch; very keen but we really have a lot of work to do. The general level of basic ball handling skills is really pretty low and I'm not ( Read more... )

We had over 60 boys and girls turn out for a coaching clinic with our new head coach today. A very respectable number of senior players also turned out to help ( Read more... )

The rugby season definitely has a 'coming to the end' feel to it even though the seniors have five regular season games plus play offs and the U18s have maybe three more games. Numbers at U16/18 training have dropped off to the point that I suggested we move to Rosedale and train with the men. This worked a treat as the thirds are seriously short ( Read more... )

Last night I was coaching stuff I do understand like line outs and scrummaging. In particular I was trying to show one of the kids how to scrummage in the second row. Now many people think that second row is a position that is played by big dumb oxen that don't know any better and that therefore any idiot, if large enough, should pick it up very ( Read more... )

We had a guest coach last night for the juniors. He coaches at Caldy Grammar and for one of the clubs in Cheshire. He has been here a week and seen enough Canadian rugby to confirm some of my suspicions about the weaknesses in our game. It was quite fascinating and I learned a lot.

Tackling. British coaches are now teaching a whole new way of ( Read more... )

We have our last regular season U16 game scheduled on Sunday. It's clear that we don't have a team so we'll scratch and so will end our season. Some of the more physically mature boys will continue with the U18s so that's some consolation but not much. We started the season with a strong squad of around 20 players which would have made us very ( Read more... )

We had a game against the Barbarians at Fletcher's last night. The U18 boys and U19 girls were also playing and, I believe, there were a total of nine junior games at the square last night. With all the injuries and other stuff we had only eight guys dressed (Despite one guy saying he'd make up the numbers if necessary. I thought it would be ( Read more... )

We played one of the Cru's U16 sides this morning (They are a big club; they have two squads in each junior age group). We had only 12 players so they sportingly agreed to play 12 a side though, of course, they had the advantage of being able to roll in substitutes at frequent intervals. I'm down 10 players since we started the season. 3 to ( Read more... )

I have spent far, far too much time at Sunnybrook in the last few hours. Last night one of the boys dislocated his shoulder and I got the fun job of taking him for precautionary X-rays. I guess I was in Emergency for a couple of hours before his dad arrived.

This morning is lemur_catta's knee surgery at the Holland Centre and she was given the revolting ( Read more... )

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