West Coast Rugby Rocks Tour

It's the bank holiday weekend, the sun is burning bright in clear blue skies and Camberley are off on tour. The Under sevens, eights and nines were all playing at Bideford rugby club and fielded a team for each age group. Playing three games each day and getting around the site to see some of the great rugby taking place.

Hosted by the West Coast Rugby Rocks team, the event is huge with thousands of children and their families converging on the glorious seaside town of Bideford. Spread across the rugby clubs training areas and surrounding parks area, there were continuous games of rugby from early morning through to the early evening. Tents and kids from all over set up with various states of fancy dress, picnics, various fast food, local beer tent and the obligatory ice cream van... 

All arriving at different times throughout the afternoon and evening, we slowly found out where we were all staying, comparing our different chalets and determining where everything was. Issued with out toy soldiers as 'flash cards', we were all set for the next day and for some of us our first ever tours.

So Flash Cards.... with every person touring being given a little green toy soldier, if a coach ever blew their whistle when not on a pitch you were to take your pose as your soldier or face a forfeit, various physical exercise or more traditional rugby type forfeits. It is amazing to see a group of individuals all freezing and taking up their poses in unison, like a flashmob with each whistle.... Of course you could be challenged on your pose and if you couldn't prove it with your figure being on your person, you faced further forfeits..... 

We all enjoyed our games starting in the morning and finishing around lunch time, this gave us the opportunity to get back to the holiday park end enjoy the swimming pool, down time running around the green spaces, and getting ready for the evening barbecue as a travelling tour team.

Our theme this year was rockstars, with various levels of effort and some pretty alarming sites. It was great to get together as a club and build on ever growing friendships, and getting to stay up late, eat meat cooked by South Africans off a Brai, made it all the better... we did go into the club for the entertainment as it got dark, and enjoyed the dance floor and arcades, but the less said about that the better.... ;o)

Sunday was more of the same with another glorious day, the boys played some more lovely rugby and after all collecting our medals we headed to the beach to enjoy some of the Devon sunshine and sand. It was glorious sunshine when we left the festival and walking into the low cloud on the beach was an eery feeling... the clouds did clear though and we threw a rugby ball around, went searching through the rock pools, and making sand castles for a couple of hours, interspersed with the occasional blow of the whistle to flashmob the beach... before heading back to the site, bit more of a swim and coming together for our final team get together. The children all in and out of the jacuzzi and running around having great fun, while the parents discussed how well everyone has done this year.

Small impromptu games of rugby popped up between the boys and girls, and some of the skill that they showed, drawing players and popping of passes at the last second was great, we were really impressed by how well the boys and girls all looked after each other and played so well with minimum supervision.

It was a great weekend, helped by the weather and a great group to travel with. We're starting to look at next year already and hope to have as much fun again next year. It is wonderful to travel as part of such a social club and get together with the parents you stand on a touch line with every Sunday morning and learn a little more about each other, and for the boys to build on their teamwork.

The bigger fourteens were up in Barnstaple and playing in a far more competitive environment. Unfortunately we didn't get to see them and stayed in separate locations, they did however do the club proud and got to enjoy a fantastic weekend of rugby too.