Coaching u7's!

Trotter

Hi all,

I've got the job of doing a few short tag rugby sessions with 5 and 6 year olds this weekend.

I'm over the 'How the FFFF....' reaction now, and need to push on and come up with some little drills that are nice and safe but good craic for these little ROG's and Dricos of the year 2040. Im not sure I'll even take the tags out, and I suspect I'll end up with loads of little relays and running with the ball for fun.

I'd really appreciate any tips or drills that anyone has tried when 'coaching' little kids of that age!

Also, does anyone know if the IRFU have a coaching manual in PDF for teaching young kids the basics of tag & rugby?

Cheers!

ormond lad

Trotter wrote: »

Hi all,

I've got the job of doing a few short tag rugby sessions with 5 and 6 year olds this weekend.

I'm over the 'How the FFFF....' reaction now, and need to push on and come up with some little drills that are nice and safe but good craic for these little ROG's and Dricos of the year 2040. Im not sure I'll even take the tags out, and I suspect I'll end up with loads of little relays and running with the ball for fun.

I'd really appreciate any tips or drills that anyone has tried when 'coaching' little kids of that age!

Also, does anyone know if the IRFU have a coaching manual in PDF for teaching young kids the basics of tag & rugby?

Cheers!

This should do http://www.irishrugby.ie/playmdtv/
There is session plans, games to play with kids etc

myflipflops

Not rugby specific but I spent 3 summers coaching at a soccer summer camp when i was in college and had 6/7/8 year olds all 3 years.

The key to it is keeping them entertained along with teaching skills.

Break up the 'drills' and teaching with games. Relays are a good and I found that dodgeball is a really great one and you can probably put a rugby spin on it. At that age, giving them a fun impression of the game is as important as teaching basic skills.

blindsider

A few tips (in no particular order):

- Do a warm-up - 5 mins will do it.

- Plan your sessions

- They will quite happily play Bulldog for several games.

- If you have training cones, you can play 'Hills & Valleys' - 2 teams Hills v Valleys - lay out the cones inside a square, half wrong side up, other half right side up. Objective: each team turns over as many cones as possible, depending on their team - so, Hills team has to turn cones right side up and vice versa. Cones can be turned as many times as you like, the more the merrier. 3 mins duration - the result is usually a draw.

- Relay races with rugby ball

- Let them play tag for a while - don't be too strict. They will want to play some sort of rugby. Be strict ONLY on the 'no tackling' rule.

- Get them shouting - kids that age love to scream and shout (even if it's one team against the other)

- Enjoy!

SeaSide

One observation from a failed attempt to get Jr involved is make sure everyone gets to participate as some will be attending with mates and others by themselves.

One thought is everyone gets an armband which once they score they get to take off. First team to lose all their bands wins.

CIARAN_BOYLE

SeaSide wrote: »

One observation from a failed attempt to get Jr involved is make sure everyone gets to participate as some will be attending with mates and others by themselves.

Furthermore on this point make different teams for different activities and change them regularly in order to break up cliques or gangs within the group

Trotter

Some great tips and ideas.. Thanks!