Sutton & Epsom U7's Festival

A bright and sunny day welcomed us for Mothers Day at Sutton & Epsom's mixed ability festival and we took two teams across, whilst also running a training session at home for those that couldn't travel with us. It was quite late notice of the event taking place and having rallied around the parents we managed to get two full teams with a couple of substitutes each (I think the RFU likes us to call these finishers now...) to role through the games.

This was a really nice and relatively small festival with only a handful of clubs involved, but it made it interesting for the boys as there wasn't lots of time in between matches. To keep themselves amused they started their own games. It's great to see them think about what they could do, create a game and then introduce the rules. As coaches we could get involved and help, but the boys organised themselves and came up with lots of different things.

On the pitch they again impressed with real focus on getting back behind their teammates and getting back into defensive lines. I think one of the biggest things that stood out this week was the levels of respect for each other, the officials and the other teams. Every single persons TREDS Teamwork Respect Enjoyment Discipline and Sportsmanship shone from our teams. A great example is a couple of our players have naturally started to roll around defenders, when it got flagged and we were asked to stop it (something that is really hard! stopping people doing what is a skill that is near impossible to teach naturally, we really want to encourage it.) there wasn't an argument or complaint, just an acceptance of the rule and change of tactic.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable day and everybody had great fun, messing about with mates in growing friendships, and working together as a team to show just how good we're getting.

An ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT THANK YOU!!! to all of the mums that came along to spend their day watching children play rugby, and those at home waiting for their children to get back home. I know we probably don't say it enough, but we do Love you all for encouraging, supporting and tolerating us and our rugby exploits....