Rugby is one of the UK’s most popular sports, both to watch and to play. Rugby sevens became an Olympic sport at Rio 2016, which has boosted the sport’s profile even more.
Every Sunday tens of thousands of children train at clubs across the country, and more and more adults are taking up the sport, especially touch or ‘non contact’ rugby. The RFU estimates that 15,000 adults play touch rugby on a regular basis, and it’s also played by children and youth teams as an introduction to the full contact 15-aside game.
Big Name Sponsorship
The increasing popularity of the sport has seen big international companies sponsoring rugby, such as computer giant Dell, which last year sponsored a festival of touch rugby for disadvantaged youths during the Rugby World Cup tournament in 2015.
The company’s UK boss, Tim Griffin, played rugby in his youth, and firmly believes that sport can make real differences to people’s lives, which is why Dell UK joined forces with sport social inclusion organisations Action for Children, Hitz Rugby, Beyond Sport and England Touch to support the festival.
Grass Roots
Touch rugby’s popularity is down to its simplicity, as there are no rucks, mauls or scrums, which makes it easier to learn and less daunting to play for those who may be put off by the full contact game. The simplicity explains why it’s so popular in grass roots rugby, in all those local clubs across the UK. It also requires very little equipment. However, as with any sport, there are rules and techniques to learn, which is where online rugby drill tools like https://www.sportplan.net/drills/Rugby/ come in. These are aimed at coaches, and contain hundreds of focused drills, each targeted at different techniques or for different age groups, for touch rugby as well as for minis, junior and seniors in the full-contact game.
Coaching any sport requires careful planning to ensure that your team is getting the best out of training sessions, and that the different skills are embedded and reinforced week on week. Planning tools also help to vary sessions and to keep momentum and enthusiasm up, and take a lot of strain out of planning sessions, particularly if you’re teaching a variety of different age groups and abilities. You can also create bespoke training plans, as well as watching demonstration videos.