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Dear Coach,
Are you coaching or about to start coaching rugby to children aged from 5 to 8 years old? Feeling confident? Want to make sure your coaching is fun and engaging?
If you have a couple of minutes to spare, let me tell you how my new Fun Mini Rugby Games manual can simply and easily help you introduce the essential rugby skills to young children in a fun, safe way.
Covering coordination, agility, footwork, ball handling, tag and touch tackling and teamwork, the 24 games in Fun Mini Rugby Games are ideal for coaching rugby to children aged from 5 to 8 years old.
What can playing games do for you?
Playing games is acknowledged throughout the coaching profession - from grassroots to the top of the professional game - as one of the best ways to teach sport.
The games in Fun Mini Rugby Games:
- Will help you teach basic rugby skills to children during their most receptive years (and with plenty of crossover with other sports)
- Can be used by experienced and novice teachers and coaches of children aged from 5 to 8 years old
- Are easy to set up, understand and play, and require little or no equipment
- Will keep the children active - there's less queuing and more focused activity
- Will educate and encourage, and promote teamwork and "playing by the rules"
- Are progressive - the games are ordered so you can develop the children's knowledge throughout the year and for years to come
- Offer greater variety - different games mean different problems to solve and skills to use
- Are outcome focused - the games are not a "soft option". They have objectives for you to achieve with your players, which you can make less or more competitive
- Are energetic - the games are a "sneaky" way of introducing fitness
- Will fire up their creativity - let them try out things to find out what works
- Will let the children have fun - and keep them coming back, week-after-week.
If they don't have fun, they won't come backChildren want to have fun. It's a key reason why rugby authorities around the world back the idea of using games in training.
As a club coach or teacher, you know yourself that no child is going to come to your sessions or lessons week after week if they are not having fun.
The games included in Fun Mini Rugby Games are all about playing and having a good time, while developing core movement and coordination, as well as basic rugby skills.
Engaging and progressive
The games in Fun Mini Rugby Games are based on things that every child can relate to. They use star ships, bandits, ghosts, monkeys, tigers, dragons, aliens, cavemen, zombies and a whole host of other ideas as inspiration (see the column on the right for some examples).
Ask the children what game they want to play and off you go. They'll then want to play it again next week. With 24 games in the manual to choose from, you'll be able to offer great variety across a whole year, whilst revisiting "old favourites" time and again.
As children get older and improve, they want to be challenged further. The games in the manual are progressive, with increasing levels of skills required as you work through the chapters.
Educate and encourage
The games are based on simple rules and can educate players in simple ideas such as "right and wrong".
They are played in a fun environment with achievable, desirable objectives to encourage the children. For those of you with a background in other sports, you will see a crossover and transfer of skills and development from one activity to another.
Promote teamwork
Young children are not always keen to share. Sometimes they strive to achieve their own goals independent of the rest of the team or class.
Fun Mini Rugby Games promotes teamwork. The children will quickly realise that the objectives of most of the games can only be achieved if they work together, whether in pairs, groups or teams.
Fire their creativity
I've used these games over and over again. I know that they work. One reason for this is they have simple set ups and rules. But I'm never afraid to make changes. If your children would rather be a pilot than a spaceman, go for it. Based around a simple set of rules the children can put whatever slant they like on each game.
Why not even let them change the rules? As long as they're developing the right skills, it's simply a case of "how would they like to play?" as much as "how should they play?".
Lesson/Session Plans
The manual is divided into "Lesson/Session Plans" sections, each focused on a key skill. These start with agility, then passing and handling, tackling (with minimal contact only) and decision making.
The last Plan focuses on team skills. This section contains some more competitive situations, which bring all the skills together in more rugby-like games.
The games in each Lesson/Session Plan are ordered to progress the skills learned.
Easy to use, simple to understand
Fun Mini Rugby Games has been designed to be easy to use and simple to understand. Every game includes:
Game Rating - Indicating the relative difficulty of game. "Getting Started", Developing the Skills" and "Improving Further".
Rules - Simple rules covering everything you need to know to run the game successfully. Set Up - Suggestions for what you need to run the game. The size of the playing area, the number of players, the number of balls.
Very little equipment is needed and the games can be set up on any outdoor playing surface or indoor facility. The equipment suggested may not be available to you, but any type of balls or markers can be used.
Scoring - Whether you use the scores to make the games competitive or to measure progress is up to you.
What to call out - Never be lost for words with these concise phrases to address the key factors of each game and to boost your players' confidence.
Coaching tips – That little bit of extra advice. These hints are not key to the game but may make your teaching or coaching a little bit easier.
Key - Differentiating runs from passes, pitch markings from try lines.
Illustrations - Three pictures to clearly show you how the game is set up and developed, and how it should unfold.
Captions - Explaining the key points.
But why not see for yourself? Click on the picture below to download "Dragons", a free sample game from the manual. 
"Dragons" is a fun chasing game to promote evasion skills and tag and touch tackling, while encouraging the children to run with the ball in two hands.
Containing 24 similar games for coaching rugby to children aged from 5 to 8 years old, Fun Mini Rugby Games is the ideal "off the shelf" resource to help you deliver your rugby lessons or coaching sessions.
Can you get these games for free
on the internet?
In short, no.
The internet is a great tool for coaches, but with few barriers to posting information there's no guarantee of the quality.
Often, you do not know who designed the drills or games you see, let alone judge how qualified they are as a coach.
The games in Fun Mini Rugby Games are all tried, tested and proven to deliver to the specific needs of this important age group.
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