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4 1/2 WEEKS
Wednesday 7th September. 19 girls this evening – almost a full house taking into account those that cannot do midweek. Introduced the Under 14s to the delights of the maul today, with mixed success. Lots of gleeful hitting of bags – which is good fun – whether they have really grasped it we shall see. It will be good if they do. Its one thing we were supremely good at last year, to the extent that I don’t actually recall anyone matching us at either age group – even Welwyn who were shoved by 20 metres from our try line in one game, as the old lags never cease tell the new girls. Its always good to remember that even in face of significant adversity (like getting serious stuffed) there are always nuggets of gold to remember. Anyway, attempts to tie things together with a small-sided contact game did reveal there still is a heck of way to go. What exactly? Where to begin… “Oh, so it’s a bit like American Football, then”. Acknowledgement through gritted teeth. A bit. With the odd exception… Also managed to annoy my new assistant coach due to a bit of tunnel thinking (ie. she wasn’t getting involved enough), which wasn’t good. Entirely my fault and she was right to have a go at me – must make sure that doesn’t happen again. But she’s away next week so I’m on my own on Sunday. Me and up to 25 girls aged 9-16 with as varied experience and knowledge as its possible to imagine… this is going to require some thought. One good piece of news is that the remaining members of my U17 pack have now reported back for duty. Only Amy remains to return from last year, but she has said she will be with us even though she now boards during the week. Good news for her when she’s back is that I’m going to try pulling her off the wing to outside centre, and maybe reserve fly-half. Think she’ll like that. Well, once her replacement recovers from a broken arm achieved while playing football (soccer to our Australian and North American readers). I don’t know… if its not that its basketball or netball or similarly innocuous. Must have a word with the girls about taking care when they are playing these dangerous sports… Sunday 10th September. Two weeks to go… Perhaps it’s a natural pessimism, but today after two days of rain and early morning drizzle I arrived at the ground with that worry that one day no-one will turn up. About 10 minutes before the start we had four girls. I knew a new girl was coming so I went off to the clubhouse to wait to greet her, passing Nim – the U17 captain - on the way down. “Start them off with a game of tag” I asked. While I waited I was vaguely aware that a few more girls were arriving, and indeed that numbers had grown slightly at the top of the field. It was only when I got back up there that I found that 24 girls had shown up. Twenty-four! Damn it, they barely fitted onto the half-sized training pitch I’d quickly coned off earlier (the rain having washed all the markings away). 12 U17s (just lacking two sisters, one of whom has the broken arm) and 12 U14s (also – in retrospect - lacking only two). With the ground now soft enough we were able to do some proper contact for the first time, following on from tackling exercises. Mixing everyone up seemed to work reasonably well – there would not have been the space to split them anyway. Really beginning to get somewhere – the youngest of the U14s in particular showing the older girls the way. A couple of the older ones seemed a bit lost at times… must work more with them. All in all a remarkable morning. In a couple of weeks now we’ve gone from concerns about whether we’d have a U14 team to concerns about how we’ll do team selections if everyone turned up for a game! Topped off by passing out the new hoodies to last year’s players – the new girls will get theirs after their first match. Wednesday 13th September… 12 days to go Time for the scrum sledge! Mike – our resident forwards coach – joins us to take the new pack through the basics, and introduce the U14s to the joys of scrumaging. One aspect of junior rugby is that you start with a new slate each year. New girls come in, old girls move out and even those from previous seasons move to new positions. So the pack in particular changes – so it’s a new second row, new loose-head, new flankers… and no actual number 8 as such, but various possible “volunteers”. And as for the U14s – all totally new. So it’s scrums and line-outs for 90 minutes. May have lost a couple of girls… which happens, but its always disappointing. As a rule about 30% of girls who come for a try don’t take to it, and with increasing numbers it becomes harder to look after the new ones. Sunday 18th September… 7 days… Its an emotional roller-coaster, this coaching lark. Draining at times. Small wonder I was so exhausted at the end of last season. A couple of injuries in training today – both the U14 and U17 captains moreover. The latter may have a broken thumb due to someone standing on it, but the former is more worrying as she was in real distress when a back injury she picked up at school during the week flared up at the start of training. Twisted nerve it turned out to be – but obviously there were worries about it being something else. Clearly both are now out for next week, indeed much of next month, but that is the least of it. They are both very talented players – very talented indeed. Shoe-ins for county, and region (if justice be done), and after that… England U19s? They are my “stars” – and very much looked up to by their team-mates. Very good captains. But – side issue – girls (and women) do tend to make good team captains, don’t they? The best sporting captain I have ever seen was a woman – a cricketer named Megan Lear. Interesting to speculate why that should be… Anyway, when it comes to performance and fitness adult players generally have only themselves to worry about, and coaches of adults will, I guess, generally have players who already know the game and are, well, adults. But with a junior team… well, they almost feel like extensions of the family at the best of times. And when they are girls… These articles are being noticed it seems – and not just by a couple of girls at the club (embarrassing though that may be) but also a publisher of a coaching magazine who, on Friday, was asking me if I could write something for him about the differences involved when coaching girls. There are differences, obviously (which I won’t generally go into here), but one significant one that occurs to me now is that between the coach and players of a girls team there is a common bond - of adversity. I am coaching – and they are playing – a non-traditional sport, and moreover one which some out there have doubts about. The result is an unspoken, unacknowledged pressure - a general background feeling that we – the girls and I – need to… well, “prove ourselves” for want of a better term. Not to the club, I might add, who are incredibly supportive but to… well, the world at large. And I guess its when it comes to injuries that you feel the pressure more. A year of two back one of the country’s more scurrilous rags – Daily Mail I think – in a rare (even unique) acknowledgement of the existence of girls’ rugby wrote about the injuries in that year’s National Sevens (not that there were many, but why should that get in the way of a good story?). “Should girls be playing a sport like this”, was the heavy-handed - line but one that obviously still grates with RFUW today. And when a girl gets injured – and in particular is lying on a stretcher in some distress… Well, you get the idea. Fact that the injury was really caused at school doesn’t really change much. By the way, is it me or it the injury rate among girls due to school sport astonishing… basketball in particular is a real killer. Arms, legs, ribs, backs – it knackers them all! Perhaps I’m too sensitive for what is a contact sport – but heck they are “my” girls. Much of what they know – most even – they’ve learnt from me (scarily enough). Many are only here because of my promotional efforts. You kinda feel responsible. Which is a bit of a departure from one’s usual style I suppose, but you have to be truthful. Anyway… numbers a bit down today, 18 in all, but I knew a couple would be away. Should be enough next week for Milton Keynes as by the sounds of it we’ll still have more than them. What will the result be? I think its “too close to call” now – especially with today’s events. Any of my girls reading this can turn away at this point but so whisper it… not that it matters (the score that is). The key (especially for the U14s) is that they get on the field, enjoy it, and come off in one piece. That would be a “result”. One thought – I am now fly-halfless for the U14s. And kicker-less. Oh heck. I think I know what we are doing on Wednesday…
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