26th June 2008 By Alan Jones
Redingensians Rugby Club runs an Academy for its most promising Junior players, who receive skills-based coaching from the club’s first-team coach. From this a team of 16-18 year-olds has been selected to take part in the Men’s League in Reading, the only youth team in an adult competition.
With an average age of less than 16 and many players having their first experience of Touch Rugby, it was going to be a steep learning curve. Steep it may have been, but they climbed it with aplomb, winning all their league games to qualify for the final. In the process they beat one team from Redingensians and two from Reading, as well as teams from locally-based businesses.
The final against a specialist Touch team proved to be just too much, but they did have the satisfaction of scoring seven touchdowns; to put this into perspective their opponents had conceded only nine in six games to reach the final.
 “The premium placed on handling skills, and the creation and use of space means that playing Touch will accelerate the players’ development.” says Alan Jones, the Academy Manager, “We expect to see many of these players in the Redingensians’ first team in the next few seasons.” Redingensians Academy is open to all players, not just members of Redingensians. For more information on the Academy, or to apply for a place, please contact Alan Jones (enquiries@wokinghamsport.co.uk).
For more information on Touch Rugby please contact Paul Farrington (paul@in2touch.com
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