Training Report

Happy New Year to everyone!

I felt a bit daunted coming back to rugby after my knee injury but also very excited to be getting back into it as well.

At the start of the training session we warmed up by jogging and sprinting in between lines to get our heart beat up. At the same time, we did arm and thigh stretches to help us avoid injury during the training session.

The first drill involved passing the new weighted balls, including switches and loops to improve our general handling of the ball. Next we split up into forwards and backs and practised set pieces. I was with the forwards. We completed a lot of line outs and scrums which I really enjoyed. Big Mike gave us tips about how to throw the ball into the lineout. What I learned most was how to throw the ball to the number 4 jumper.

After the drills came a short game, which we were all ready for. There was some good play by forwards and backs, but no tries. Pony thought that the lasts scrum he saw was the best that he had seen by both packs in a long time. We did have a few problems though with the crouch-touch-pause-engage where we were engaging too early. Ray talked us through it a few times and it slowly sunk in and Pony explained a bit of why we touch during this sequence – to measure distance and get spacing right.

The County squad trained for an extra hour. We did more jogging and sprinting, a few rucking drills where we concentrated on the jack knife position and clearing out the opposition by coming from deep to smash them back. Pony did a demo for us by bashing into Ray. There was a big thud as Pony's shoulder went into Ray's stomach!! After a bit kick-off practice and positional play we then developed our tactics by learning about 2 phases of rucking before spinning the ball out wide to the backs.

I really enjoyed the training session today and can't wait until next week.