What a cracking weekend! On Saturday Harry Mackay was presented his Young Coach of the Year award at the club by Louise Nadin (Sutherland ASC). It was awesome to see the boy get the recognition he deserved. Plus, the 1st XV got a thumping home result against Lochaber, even managed a cheeky “Mince Pie myself” (checkout the photo!!) and on Sunday both our under 14s and under 16s recorded victories over Caithness.

Looking ahead to this week, I am coming to the end of my first block of primary rugby. First thing I noticed and I am sure any school teachers can back me up on this, the kids are picking up the game faster than ever. Three things I am putting this down too are, Ross-Sutherland's involvement in school rugby in the past number of years, some schools are now delivering touch rugby as part of their sports curriculum and the third would have to be that rugby is a growing sport in the area. All together I am blown away with the standard we are producing in Easter Ross!

Wednesday, I attended the SRU technical blueprint in Inverness. This is to show all clubs and schools what the goals of the SRU are for rugby as a nation. The aim is to play a much faster game of rugby and move away for the slow, confrontational and to be honest slightly boring style of rugby we have been forcing into people for the past number of years. The future looks bright, the ball spending less time in the ruck, less time wasted at the scrum, throwing the ball around the pitch and looking to attack space from anywhere on the pitch. Yes, I think I could get behind this and all we need now is to move the rugby season to the summer and life would be perfect!

If you have been following this blog or just following the club in general, you may have noticed that we are targeting p6-s2. Now I would hate for anyone to think that we are neglecting our other age groups. The plan now is to try and run an under 17s school’s tournament at Ross before Christmas. I remember playing in tournament like this when I was a senior in High School, I was the only Ross player in my team which mattered not! Any group of lads can run, throw a ball about and make a tackle or two. Made for a cracking day out and if I remember convinced a few boys to come to the odd club session here and there

This weekend Ross-Sutherland is hosting its first club girls training day of the season; this is for any girls in S1-6. Looking forward to the day as it is a good change as a coach to work with the girls and is going to be great preparation for the first “Let Me Play" fixtures on the 27th of November. This is for any and all girls playing rugby in Highlands and Grampian district, does not matter if you have been playing for one week or five years, just a chance to chase an egg around the pitch with some like-minded girls.

Finally, I hope you are all remembering that our beloved national squad are facing Australia on Saturday. Last time we played we were robbed a world cup victory and the time before we beat them in there on back yard! Not going to get my hopes up to soon as Scotland has always achieved more as an underdog team, but by far my favourite fixture to watch.

Ross-Sutherland Community and Rugby Development Officer
Over and out!