U12s Tour to Hereford
U12s home from a very successful tour to Herefordshire
The Old Patesian’s RFC U13s consists of just over 45 active players. These players have been divided into two mixed ability squads (the Barbarian’s and Viking’s), each of which has its own designated lead coach, who is an RFU Level 1 coach, as well as a team of assistant coaches, many of whom will either be working towards their Level 1 qualification or specialists in a specific area of the game, such as lineouts or the England Rugby ‘activate’ initiative. Player welfare is extremely important to us, so each squad has a couple of first aid trained coaches and all of our volunteers are DBS checked. We also have a designated parent who acts as the ‘Safeguarding officer’ for our age group.
Our Head Coach, Richard Simpson, with the support of our Team Manager, James Speller, oversees the entire age group, ensuring that our team of volunteer coaches provide challenging, interesting and fun training sessions that maximise the potential of each and every player whilst also developing all those other important skills and qualities, such as teamwork, respect, humility, empathy, resilience etc.
As an age group we aim to play a fast-paced game, where support play, offloads, creativity and agility are essential skills. Simply put, we do this because we believe this is a more enjoyable way to play and enjoyment is extremely important to all of us.
As an age group we also recognise the important role that friendships and having fun plays in sustaining children’s participation in sport. For this reason, we do not focus on winning (although we do try to win as much as we can). Instead, we focus on developing new skills, challenging players to be the best player they can be and on creating more friendships. This is why we do not train as separate squads, but as one large group, why we organise tours and socials and why we mix the squads up at the start of every season (this facilitates new friendships and helps us to maintain evenly balanced squads).
Finally, as an age group we do not believe in having a waiting list. Therefore, new players are always very welcome!
