Newport News Rugby Football Club

Happy New Year Everyone!

Well for the first time since 2005, NNRFC has something important to focus on during the Spring season! The MARFU playoffs.

It’s still undecided exactly who we will be playing, but in any event it will most likely be the toughest game most of you have played. You will be faced with big forwards who are fit and mobile. The backs will not only be fast, but they will be big and will tackle you like “Thumper” does! This means that all our forwards should have been hitting the weights, and getting themselves very fit, and the backs should be doing the same! If you haven’t started this yet, do it NOW!

I plan on starting some conditioning sessions probably on a Saturday. We will follow up with some touch etc.

This season is not only about doing well in MARFU. While it is important we do well, the main purpose of this season is to continue the growth of the club and the players so we can make a trip to MARFU a regular occurrence. To achieve this I need to develop not only the top 15 “starters” but to groom the rest of you to push those starters and eventually replace them, either this year or in a year or two. This is going to be tricky as I know no-one likes to train and not play. Unfortunately, many of four opponents just don’t have enough players for a B-side on a regular basis, and we are not quite big enough to go to Div 2, where its mandatory.

So in the meantime, you as the players need to be mature and develop a long-term vision of your rugby career, and the Exec needs to arrange as many games as possible so players can get some game experience. This is hard to do during the Matrix Fall season, but Brian is working hard to set up fixtures where we will field our developmental squad.

I plan to start regular training sessions on Jan 31.

Our conditioning camps will prob start on Jan 21.

Do yourself a favor and start running, preferable 4 miles a day.

If you don’t want to be embarrassed in MARFU, run. If you want to be a starter RUN!

Looking forward to watching you guys continue to grow into rugby players.

Coach!

Richard A Britten, PhD,