Another big improvement for the Raiders Under 7's last night against Kippax, a side that beat us something like 7-2 a few weeks ago in very windy conditions. We have been working on defense since the previous game against Kippax and it really showed last night, the lads seemed to have a really good success rate at completing tackles once they actually got to the players - but we still need to work on getting a bit of structure in the defensive line and get them to move up as a line. We have Townville Tigers on Sunday, a really good looking side who played last year too - played 3 games in a festival at the beginning of the year without conceding a try and they appear to be the best side in the league by all accounts - so that will be a real hard test.



Seems to be a bit of a struggle for us with the "new" rules this year, whereby each team completes their set of 6 regardless of errors made. I understand the concept of it and that it is trying to get players to play the game without fear of making errors but it seems counter productive to allow a team to offload the ball absolutely anywhere almost like the free play in SL, if it goes to hand (even after a few bounces) then there is every chance they will score given the compressed nature of the defense and if it goes to the other team the offloading team get the ball back and continue. I just think this is sending the wrong message about because there is no downside to



As a coaching team we have made the decision not to let the lads offload as yet - and last night we didnt make 1 all game, but we conceded a couple of tries to offloads that ended up bouncing all over before being picked up by their side and scoring from it, we will work on it soon when their general ability level increases. Does anybody else have a view?

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.