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4 1/2 WEEKS
Wednesday 24th August. 4am. A new season dawns. Summer is all but over and with it nights of undisturbed sleep with nothing much to worry about beyond holiday planning. That all came to an end yesterday when Mike delivered the girls’ fixture list for the new season. It was at least one less job I had to worry about this year and its arrival did result in one small shock, which is partly – indeed mainly – why I am lying awake in the early hours. It was that top line that did it… That’s a mere four and a half weeks away! And the season isn’t supposed to start until 4th September… I have two teams to find for the game. Under 17s are probably okay – I mean we have 14 girls in that age group from last year, so we should get a good team out (not quite a full team, but pretty close). Okay they have never played together before as half of them were Under 14s last year and the scrum is untried and so on but… No – my main concern is the new Under 14 team as I have only four players. I also have a whole stack of names who expressed some interest last season, but will they turn up? And how much of a side can I get together – starting from scratch – in three weeks? Sunday 28th August. 10.30am. Two days of phone calling, emailing, and texting has resulted in our organising an early start. Unfortunately it’s a) a Bank Holiday weekend, so loads of people are away, b) we cannot do any tackling as is still officially pre-season, and c) its about 80 degrees in the shade (not that there is any), and the ground is like concrete. Gets to 10.15… will anyone come? By 10.25 they start to arrive – 13 girls in all including four new girls aged 9-13, all total beginners and looking terribly small against some of last years players who seem to have grown about six inches over the summer. The new girls are all keen and talented – but all, at this stage, backs I think. No signs of any forwards at all yet. Wednesday 31st August. 6pm Hang over from Bank Holiday, and the continued high temperatures, still keep the numbers down… but I think I’ve got some props! The sister of one of last year’s U14s has come along with a friend and – yup – they’ll do. One of the 11 year olds is already ear-marked for hooker so that is the front-row sorted at least. Some rucking done – no training session is complete without the girls hitting things. It is, after all, why most of them are here. If they wanted to just throw a ball around they’d be playing netball. Indeed its clear that the new girls do play quite a bit of netball (a close cousin of basketball for non-Commonwealth readers) as they do rather try to do chest passes, and also have a disturbing habit of stopping dead when they receive a ball. “Keep running…” we shout (“…or you’ll end up in casualty” we try not to say). Sunday 4th September The official season begins. Three weeks to go and it's 90 degrees. At least. We manage to get in about 40 minutes of introduction to tackling, and some line out stuff (because they does not involve too much running) but beyond that… Still 20 girls today – and a full U14 pack. So we’ve got the numbers, all we need to do now is to teach them … everything. Oh that and some proper autumn weather, please! And there’s got three weeks to go...
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