Midi’s P4 – P7 (U9 – U12)

THe Hillfoots Mighty Ram

The Mighty Rams!

Home training on Sunday mornings 10.00 – 12.00.  Home & Away matches & festivals on Sundays. 

This is what we call our Midi teams who train and play in year groups from P4 to P7.  Each year group has a dedicated 2 man coaching team who work with JP, our RDO (Rugby Development Officer), our U18 team volunteers and our rugby playing DoE volunteers from local schools.  The usual Hillfoots principles and values apply – “everybody plays”, so there’s plenty of game time for all.  There are also weekly prizes for the best player and best tackler based upon effort, attitude and work rate, not just results on the pitch.

Awards for effort

In the Midi section, we follow the SRU age grade law variations, so there are specific modes of play for P4-5, P6 & P7.  We focus upon building individual skills as well as developing team play and by P6 & P7, we start to think about game winning strategies.

Just before Christmas, and until the end of January each season, the weather can be unkind to Hillfoots.  But don’t worry, we up sticks to Alva Academy’s indoor gym facilities.  There we focus upon speed, agility, fitness and core stabilitiy work with a dedicated programme of organised activities.  You will get the opportunity to have a go at the 50m sprint, the Beep Test, Animal Olympics, ladders, offloading as well a range of activities that keep hand catching skills top of the list.

Bad weather never stops play

Here’s one of our P7′s showing why he’s one of the fastest kids in the County and holds the Junior section record for the 50m sprint!

Run Forest, run!!

P6 – P7 (U11-U12)

Muddy but happy - they won!

Here’s our P6/7 Kinross festival winners from October 2011.  A picture of happiness, muddiness and team spirit!  Coaches Paddy, Stewart, JP & Mike were delighted to see them do so well that day, but they are equally happy to support & guide the team when they don’t do so well.  Mistakes?  There’s no such thing!  Only learning opportunities.

In this age group we see the beginning of separate forward and back play.  There are 5 & 3 man uncontested scrums, uncontested line outs and kicking is allowed from behind a defending team’s 5m line.  There’s loads for the players to learn and we make sure that all players have the chance to learn all the positions.  With patient, step by step coaching, everyone gets a chance to try out forward and back play in a safe and fun environment.

We use “Teamer” to organise & manage our training and fixtures.  Teamer is a web based tool that sends emails and SMS texts to all players and/or parents.  It enables the coaches to stay in touch and communicate in real time with everybody.  So, if you are ill or busy doing something else (surely not??!!) & can’t make a session, it’s easy to let the coaches know in advance.  In return they’ll let you know if things like bad weather prevent a session going ahead.

P4 – P5 (U9 – U10)

Going into contact

Here you can see one of our P4/P5 players being tackled at a festival in Perth in May 2011.  Have a look at how he is protecting the ball from the opposing team with both his hands and he is preparing to drive his legs in an attempt to defeat the tackler.  Hopefully he did that successfully, or offloaded the ball to a supporting Hillfoots player who continued the phase of play.  Maybe he was brought to the ground in the tackle, but was able to present the ball back and his supporting team members formed a ruck and drove over him to maintain Hillfoots possession. 

These are some of the key individual and team skills that the coaching team led by Alan, Jodie & Iain teach our P4 & P5 players as they develop their rugby experience.  However, the main objective is to make sure that the players are enjoying themselves and learning how to participate successfully in a team environment.

Here’s our successful P5 team from a tournament in Kinross in Autumn 2011.  It’s a mixed team with our friends from Crieff RFC.  The two clubs came together, never having played together before, made new friends and came out as overall P5 winners.

Happy, muddy faces!