Training THURSDAY 10.30am

Training this week will be on Thursday at 10.30am in Underhill.
Don't forget the Ospreys Training Day at the UNIVERSITY playing fields
Tuesday 1.00pm to 3.00pm.
All the squad have been listed, so all are welcome to atttend.

Neath Athletic Sunday 9.30am Meet

The good news is that Neath Athletic have kindly agreed to come down to Mumbles to fill the void left by South Gower not being able to play on Sunday.
So meet time of 9.30am to allow for a 10.00am Kick Off. See you all there...

Junior Section Team Policy

Below is a post from the Mumbles Pirates (u12s) blog.
The sentiments and policy expressed within it are whole-heartedly supported and echoed by the Crusaders coaching team. At the bottom of the post, there is a link to a survey where you can, if you so wish, comment with your thoughts on the post and the policy contained within it.
You can also view the post in its original format on the Pirates blog here

 

Dan, Lyndon, Mike, Jason

 

Dear Pirates and parents

In the wake of a few recent conversations it would be helpful to touch base on match day selection policy. As background we have always given all players an equal minimum game time. This aspires to keep all the children enthusiastic about rugby and sport and give the whole squad opportunity to fulfil their potential. The WRU has increasingly recognised that selection can result in losing young children to the sport and correlates poorly with future performance, hence the disbanding of District teams below U15 last year.

Equally, given that our children are pre-growth spurt, they are encouraged to experiment with different positions and discouraged from pigeon-holing too early.

Whilst sometimes this puts the team at a disadvantage, against opponents who just play their best team, it has kept the whole squad together. This year we started the year with the same 24 players that started last year, which has not been the case for some of our contemporaries and turned away 3 more whilst they remain unfilled.

Not unreasonably many of the team did other things over the summer rather than attend our pre-season training leading a slow start into the season with many new scrum and lineout skills to learn. We have made some progress in the last few weeks which culminated in a very good team victory against Penclawdd, where all the players rightly felt that they were part of the victory. Clearly we didn't have the best week-end on Sunday, particularly against a team we beat two weeks ago. There have been lots of opinions aired as to why we had this performance and what direction the team should take from here. Without going into too much detail there were lots of small mistakes, in skills, decisions, application and tactics on the week-end, that weren't present in previous weeks, which collectively hampered our performance as a team.

Clearly with some notable exceptions we still need to ignite that 'switch-on from the kick-off focus and will to win' attitude that has eluded us.

Moving forward we need to decide if we continue to focus on teamwork, fun and developing potential, inline with WRU guidance, or focus purely on winning more matches. With the former we will have a strong happy squad for the coming years. With the latter we risk losing some of the fun and some of the players along the way.

At the end of the day the team belongs to us all collectively and input and suggestion is welcome from all, especially the boys. We would be grateful if each family could reflect on this as we go forward in the Season so we can prioritise and achieve consensus on our goals. We will be arranging a meeting in the coming weeks to discuss this. Finally any parent who would like to contribute in any capacity is most welcome in the volunteer coaching team, the necessary WRU training courses are funded by the club. The coaching team

Click here to post your thoughts on the team policy survey

TRAINING at BISH Sunday 9.30am

With South Gower unable to make the fixture this weekend, we will be training at 9.30am in Bishopston.
REMEMBER THE CLOCKS GO BACK!

TRAINING WEDNESDAY 5pm

Training at Underhill Wednesday 24th October will be at 5.00pm
This should allow us to get plenty done before it gets dark. See you there!

DOGS

Last weekend there was an unfortunate accident, when one of the Mumbles boys fell on to a dog that was at the side of the pitch and was consequently bitten.

If you do bring a dog, could you please keep them well away from the touchline.

TENBY CANCELLED

The decision has been made to unfortunately cancel the Tenby trip this weekend, so a rest day for all the boys on Sunday. Plenty of rugby for everyone with their respective school sides, so see you all at TRAINING NEXT WEDNESDAY

Tenby Trip

Please reply ASAP to the Teamer sent out for the Tenby game on Sunday 21st October
We are keen to get numbers sorted and car sharing organised so we all get to the seaside on time!

Gowerton Meet 9.45am

Meet time at Gowerton on Sunday 14th October is confirmed as 9.45am
See you all there...

Gowerton Away

Gowerton away this coming Sunday 14th October
Gowerton are not yet sure of the available KO slot for us on Sunday, so we are waiting on their email on Saturday to let us know.
As soon as we know the KO time it will be posted on the blog.

TRAINING CANCELLED - 10/10/12

Training is cancelled for tonight - Wednesday 10th October - due to so many boys playing at a schools tournament in olchfa.
Good luck to all taking part.

Look out for info and team on the blog and via Teamer for Gowerton away on Sunday.
PLEASE REPLY TO YOUR TEAMER TEXTS FOR THE MATCH ON SUNDAY!

Thank you to Coakley-Greene Fishmongers

A big thank you from everyone at The Crusaders to Coakley-Greene fishmongers in Swasnea Market for their kind donation. The business is a well known local treasure for quality seafood. Read more about them and their fantastic produce here:
www.coakleygreene.food-passion.co.uk

Training Wednesday 5.30pm

Training again this week Wednesday 5.30pm