Great start to the season. Only a few weeks into the new season and already 2 ‘Festivals’ under our belts and a trophy in the bag!! Lots of smiles all around as the game becomes more recognisable as ‘proper’ rugby, it has been a joy to watch and be part of. Teddington won the "Enjoyment" category trophy at the Reeds festival last weekend. It is quite a beast of a trophy and we will try and make sure that the kids get to share it around a bit.

We hope you all agree that both fixtures allowing the whole age group to be together have been a great success. Being so early into the new season of 'Contact' for our age group we were so pleased with the overall standard of our teams against the opposition. We were really excited to see how the players have taken to ‘Tackling’ especially when faced with a real opposition, across the board confidence seems to be growing with every tackle made.

There are lots of things to work on going forward to support and develop all the players in the age group, at this stage we will continue to focus on improving Tackle Technique, Confidence and Teamwork.

We will be using the next few sessions and feed back from the festivals to work on all of this in training. In order to move forward with this we have made the decision to cancel joint training with Chiswick this weekend. (We have spoken to Chiswick Coaches who are completely understanding and will try and honour the missed session later in the season). Which means we will be training at home in Bushy Park with a normal 9:45am start.

We will need ‘Parent Helpers’ during the next few sessions so we can give adequate support to our players/children. We will keep the tasks simple, but this additional support is essential in helping us develop the whole age group.

RFU guidelines regarding streaming and how this varies between the different events that we will be involved in will continue to be ever evolving and challenging. We want to create a whole squad mentality, with teams that can bring out the best in each other, but can ultimately play with any of the squad if necessary. We will need to be flexible and at times make changes and ask for your support in this. The players will also develop throughout the season and will need the opportunity to play with others. The emphasis will always be on the importance of Teamwork and Support and making sure they continue to develop, play well and enjoy the game.

We should all be really excited about the potential in our U9 age group, we have a great squad.

After training: Tom Boynton is our U15 player who is helping out as part of his Duke of Edinburgh's Aware scheme. The U15 team will be playing against Horsham at BP with a noon kick-off. Please do stick around and watch Tom and his team mates in action. Give our kids an idea of where we are trying to get to in the years to come.

See you Sunday
U9 Coaches