September 9th - Fun in the Sun

The sun always shines on the righteous and so it was last Sunday. The sun also hailed the glorious return of good looking Gavin B to add his considerable skills and charisma to the coaching team. Nice to have you back Gav, you inspire me.

Two or three new faces to the team again this week, with some children really showing excellent promise. Welcome to you all.

We started with warm ups and some leg stretching with Nick however within minutes it was obvious that things were going to get hot. We had noticed last week that space management was something that needed to be worked on so a few games involving finding and keeping space were played.

Bulldog followed as well as my old school favourite stuck in the mud. Some mild cheating going on during this game but we can overlook this, remember the hand of Back!

As well as the children the coaches were also getting hot and bothered so after some more passing practise we went straight into the games. It is worth noting that passing doesn’t seem to be our problem. Lots of balls going to hand but some members need to get the passing in the right direction and at the right height. A few of the less well practised children were taken off by Mr T to practise running and passing with the ball.

Four teams two matches. Some excellent passing into space and running with the ball resulted in tries from Tom S, Tom DC and Charlie in the match I was reffing. Lots of direct running which is also good to see. I was reminded of Lilly’s game face as she came charging down the centre of the pitch teeth clenched and the steely look of determination on her face.

If you read this before next Sunday could you please remind all the children that we have players of different abilities and different strengths. As coaches we want to improve all players’ abilities and assist those less experienced. We also have to bear in mind those with greater ability need to be pushed. As you can imagine this is sometimes a difficult task. Less able players will improve when playing against more able players. Sometimes this can frustrate the more experienced .As players our children should also recognise the differences. Name calling is not acceptable. I will be discussing this with all of them on Sunday morning.

Look forward to seeing you all on Sunday.

Regards

Gavin "Big-Mac" Manger