At Under 14 the game is played between teams made up of a full compliment of 15 players being 8 forwards and 7 backs. Matches are made up of 2 halves of 25 minutes. All relevant normal laws now apply to the game at this age, save for a few minor amendments reflecting junior age group rugby.

Training starts at 10:45 am sharp on a Sunday – we’re sticklers for this believing that such simple disciplines help the boys become more reliant on each other when it comes to taking the field and in addition it’s a good life skill for outside of rugby. We’re fortunate that combined with the thumbscrews appearing regularly in the mini years means that everyone now by and large complies.

As a coaching team we take the view that everyone who trains should have the opportunity to play and we try and avoid pigeon-holing players in the same position every week. This has given us a very rounded and flexible squad meaning we can easily adapt to players going missing on seemingly important family events, getting injured (really? Just run it off, it’ll be fine…) or holidays on a Sunday. Really, they should by now have their priorities set of 1) Rugby; 2) everything else.

Fixtures take place around the local-ish area, with the team partaking in the East Midlands league, East Midlands Cup and Bedfordshire Cup. In addition we play a few friendly matches each season against teams that we either have good relations with, will give us a good combative performance or who we can get a morale boosting win against if we feel the need!

This has lead us to a tight-knit, but not cliquey, squad. Each year we’ve had new players joining and they’ve been welcomed by the existing players and quickly find their feet. We’re a friendly bunch, honest (!), and always looking to add a couple of extra players to our team. So get in touch and give it a try – you never know, you might just like it!

Rules for the under 15’s can be found here