Activities to use for a range of ages
Activities to add to your collection. Ideal for warm ups in older ages or main activities for younger players.
As part of the work I do with local schools, I’m currently running girls lunchtime clubs at primary schools.
There’s a few activities I do to engage girls who’s never played rugby before. To be clear, I don’t hold any sole credit over these games. I’ve collected them over the years through internet searches, chats with coaches and co-coaching with others.
The girls are aged 10-11. I tend to avoid team games that I would use for highschool sessions (rugby netball or multi-direction touch for example).
Instead, I use activities that work on individual skills often within a group setting. I’m going to outline a few examples. You can use them if you visit schools.
You can also use them for any age group. I use some of these games when coaching my adult women’s team. They serve as fun warm up games and opportunities to have fun whilst working on skills (including sprints, evasion and passing)
Tag
I use a few variations of tag (or tig). I use it as an opening game. Here’s how I run the game:
Give a few players a ball (usually 3-5 players depending on how large the group is)
The players who have a ball are taggers. They must tag other players using the ball (the ball must be held and not thrown)
If players are tagged they must stand still.
I then amend how players can be freed:
- Game 1: Players can be high fived to be free
- Game 2: Players must crawl through the legs of the person they’re freeing
- Game 3: Players must perform a 3 second dance move with the person they’re freeing
Rats and Rabbits
I love this sprint activity. Players get to work on running fast either way from their partner or chasing and tagging their partner. It never fails to bring a smile on players’ faces.
Set up a playing area with 3 lines of cones
Have the middle line of cones in the middle, with the two outside lines 10m away from the middle
Ask players to find a partner
Them and their partner stand back to back along the middle line
Give each set of players an animal name (either rats or rabbits). For example, I often walk to one side of the line and say “if you’re facing me now you’re a rat”. I then repeat it and make the other group of players rabbits.
If I call out “rats”, the players who are rats must run to the line of cones they’re facing. Their partner (rabbits) must try and chase them and tag them. Rats must run in a straight line.
The game is the same if I call out “rabbits”. Those players sprint to their line of cones.
I play this game for a few rounds
Race to pass the ball
This activity helps get new players gaining confidence with the ball.
Split players into two teams
Line them up opposite each other and get them to spread evenly apart
Make sure each line of players is the same length
The teams must try to pass the ball along their line, reaching the end player before the other team
I play a few rounds of this and give teams a chance to chat about tactics. Duringh these team talks, I chat to players about where they hands should be to catch the ball
Try these activities and adapt them to suit your players.
Activities like ‘Race to pass the ball’ work with older players as a small skill warm up game, especially on a warm summer day. ‘Rats and rabbits’ and ‘Tag’ work for older players as part of a larger warm up.