Yeovil Rugby Club

This weekend saw the Mini and Junior sections running their first tournament of the season and first competitive style games since the beginning of lockdown. With nearly 100 children taking part the committee had organised and planned the tournament to ensure the safety and well being of all those children that attended and joined in. The format of the day, working within the RFU current guidelines on safe game play and training enabled age grade teams to mix together and form 9 squads on the day.

Within the Juniors section the tournament brought together the U14, U15, U16 boys along with the U15 girls. The coaches divided each of their squads into five mixed teams, with a total of 48 players in all. Following the Ready4Rugby rules each match was played for 15 minutes after which each player sanitised their hands and all equipment was cleaned and disinfected. 

Winners medals went to Team 1 (as they never got round to choosing team names!) and the sportsmanship award went to the Red team as they demonstrated the best application of RFU core values. It was great to see all the different age groups playing together and certainly seemed like all those involved were having a fun time. 

David Webber, who coaches the U14 boys said “My U14 son certainly noticed the fast pace of the play and hopefully will try and bring that back into the U14 training and games. They will all have learned from each other.” 

The Minis tournament was much the same with the same strict attention to RFU regulations on game play and the requirements to sanitise hands and clean and disinfect all equipment used. The Minis tournament saw age groups U8 to U12 mix together, with a total of 45 players being split into 4 teams. The tournament brought an opportunity for these younger children to generally interact with other members of the club they may not necessarily have had the opportunity to have done so before. The coaches saw players actively asking each other’s names and the quality of rugby improved dramatically with each passing game which was incredibly fast paced (and very hard for their 31 year old ref to keep up with!). 

Team 4 ended up taking the winners medals, and our sportsmanship award was won by team 1. Every coach in attendance witnessed and commented on the success of the tournament and as each of the teams finished their final game, and returned to their team zone and just sat in a circle talking and laughing with each other which proves how successful the event was in their eyes.  

All the core value winning teams also received a new water bottle each, which were kindly donated by www.wessexwater.co.uk. We would like to thank Wessex Water for their kind donation which has helped us ensure each player within our teams has access to their own water bottle during training and games which during these current times is incredibly important for both sanitary and health reasons.

Feedback from the parents in attendance was also positive and gave coaches the feeling of the tournament being a resounding success as the parents praised the organisation and wanted to see more. A separate training session was held for the younger members who were also able to join in with the match meal after the games.

Coach Sean Fellows said” after having played nearly 45 minutes of very fast rugby, we had kids asking if there were more games! It was a real privilege for me to take part in the event.” 

If you want to find out more about our Mini and Juniors set up here at Yeovil Rugby Club or if you want to get involved, please do contact us now.  

To join or to find out more on how to get involved please contact Alison Bennett by email: csajcbennett@tiscali.co.uk