Training

By Francine Thompson

Charlie and I have been back in the country for just over one day and it's already raining, must be start of the rugby season!

It was so good to see so many children at the first session this morning. A special welcome to Ben, Will, Will and Josh. We hope that you enjoyed your first session with Chichester and look forward to you becoming part of the squad.

Thanks to Jess for his welcome and Pete for the new rules and safety briefing. It's worth noting that both Jess and Pete gave up a large proportion of their summer to take a refereeing course and level 2 coaching. Both passed with flying colours. Well done to both and thank you for your commitment to the boys and the squad.

Stating with a warm up, Simon took the boys off while Jess and Lee got ready for forwards and backs sessions.

A short game of touch to get the boys used to playing with a funny shaped ball again and then on to some drills.

Ball handling and line speed, running lines and drawing the man were worked on with the backs while we worked on body positioning and scrummaging with the forwards.

I watched a bit of both sessions and was impressed with all our players. Body positioning in the scrum is something to be mastered; actually the dark arts of scrummaging are not something to be learned in a one-hour session! More next week.

The first game of the season was a little scrappy at times but that is to be expected. Some good lines and tackling towards the end. It's all the start of a build up to the first game against Salisbury which will be our first outing as a squad. As Steve said all players who are available will get some game time that day.

A final note that although players are being separated into forwards and backs and then perhaps into positions within that division, nothing is final and all positions will be up for discussion between the coaching team.

Look forward to seeing you all next week.