Youth round up – under-13s festival

Thank you to all the players and coaches for contributing to the under-13s Festival Night at the club on Friday (01-02-2019).

Some 40 players from William Robertson, Tuxford and the club staged three games in a new initiative.

A further Festival will be held when the weather improves!

Alan Staines, director of mini and youth, writes:

As part of the RFU Local Schools initiative to get more boys and girls playing rugby at grass roots level, three Newark Rugby Club coaches have been helping two schools (Newark Academy and Magnus C of E Academy) to deliver rugby.

Since Oct 18, Alex Clack, Jed Chapple and Richard Byrom have visited the two schools on a weekly basis and taught rugby to all the boys and girls in Years 7 and 8 (under 12 and 13).

The principle aim has been to get more Newark children enjoying and playing rugby, with the hope that as their confidence grows and if they liked rugby at school they would then hopefully pursue this further and join the club.

The coaches have delivered a programme of basic passing, tackling and rucking skills within lessons and combined with three very successful festivals played at Kelham Road in October and November.

At each of these festivals, three separate tournaments were organised for the Year 7 Boys, the Year 8 Boys and a Year7/8 Girls team and approximately 150 students from Newark Academy, Magnus and Tuxford schools have competed at each of the festivals.

Thank you to the school staff and our club coaches for their work so far.