More U11 Kicking madness

[David Martin]

Many Many thanks Everyone

Our festival went off very well and I made it very clear about how we were going to run the festival based on the rules that we discussed on here.

Had one coach dispute the kicking rules, but he at least came up and apologized later on, he actually went away and read the rules.

I'm still amazed at how many coaches/refs dont actually know the rules they are reffing.


Had a further festival the week after and had the same issues with the kicking rules, but had the confidence to speak up and get them to change their minds, all the guys that were at our festival backed me, so that was nice.

 

[Pinky]

David, just watch out as you will get roped in to do this again if it all went off OK.

 

[Dan_A]

One further idea for you. Years ago I organised a festival at our club, which hadn't hosted one for many years. As I went along I saved all sort of documents (e.g. invitations, contact lists, playing schedule, rules). Once the festival was finished I spent an hour going through these and making sure I had everything labelled and filed.

The next year the age group below was given the task of organising the festival. I was able to provide a complete set of templates, which was VERY gratefully received!!

 

[David Martin]

LOL, this is the 3rd year I've run our age group, so no fear of that.

The advantages of having the head of the mini section as your head coach.

 

[Dan_A]

LOL, this is the 3rd year I've run our age group, so no fear of that.

Job for life mate, I've run my older boys age group from u9 to u15. One more season and they're Colts and I would retire, except youngest son's age group need help with refereeing!

 

[manager]

Undoubtedly Anthony.

But how many does one attend before one finds a "good one" ? I attended four festivals with my two sons and age groups I coached. Every single one of them seemsed to consist of everybody arriving before 9am to be registered, with eventually starting a game at around 10.30 am, or even gone 11am!. Three matches would then be strung out between then and about 1.30pm with huge gaps between them. Then if a team was "lucky" (!!!!!!) It got to play a semi final at about 2.30pm after "a lunch break" (FFS!) and a maybe final at 3.30pm. That is at best 5 matches in something like 7 hours of attendance - at younger age groups these matches may be less than 20 minutes long of course.

that's pants. Totally and utterly pants. Frankly players are better off meeting at 10:15, and playing three games in a three way meeting . That's as much rugby as the pool stages., no ridiculous hanging around and leaves the rest of the day for everybody to have another life, and sufficient time toi drink, and have a coaching session as well.

And don't even start me in the (some) coach-win-at-all attitudes, of the fringe players getting 5 minutes play in those 7 hours, the £5-a-car entry fee when there is no option, placed on a "pitch" several miles from a toilet, shelter from the elements, which seems to be on a 1 in 3 slope/rubbish tip/ploughed field. Nor the "only ten players permitted per squad" leaving the undoubtedly weakest ten players with nothing to do that weekend (oh what an opportunity to provide some back fill for them!) because oh-what-a-surprise EVERY coach HAS to attend the festival and of course that means THEIR child ALWAYS plays at EVERY festival.

Funny how when I used to raise these concerns constantly with my own club, parents, coaches (as CCC!), RDOs and county coach committees etc everyone would just shuffle their feet and look the other way. it was a real elephant in the room - everybody acknowledged these issues privately but nobody ever addressed them. I would offer to run sessions myself for players left behind - to find of course then a mixture of coaches never actually bothering to tell those non selected players and parents that the session was available, to potential trainees not being available in the end because their sibling was attending the festival in another AG and of course the whole family had to attend for whatever bizarre reason.

They were shit.

didds

Haha classic! Having attended tournaments from U7-U12 it brought back so many memories. A particular favourite of mine was the rule on total playing time for individual players. The intention is great...but a small squad in a large tournament (you know - the ones that have too many teams per group) meant that they could find themselves in a position where they reached the final but couldn't actually field enough players!