The Medowie and Districts Junior Marauders are enjoying a great season!

We have a great small committee of parents, most of whom have been a part of the club for a while.

We started the year with Facebook and newspaper publicity, an enormous push for sponsorship which was very successful and lots of enthusiasm.

Full player’s kits were ordered for the first time and they make the kids look and and feel great.

It was very positive. Unfortunately the numbers weren’t forthcoming at rego days, in 2015 we had teams for U7, 9, 10, 12, 14s, this year we have U7,10,11 and 14s.

We lost a lot of older players to Newcastle clubs.

With no public high school within 20km, it can be difficult to keep older players who have school mates in other teams.

At this time Medowie Christian school does not have rugby union on the radar although we hope that changes soon.

Our U7s team are having so much fun in their first year of rugby and Coach Reece Montgomery is enjoying watching them increase in ability and confidence every week.

He is looking forward to seeing them grow into a strong future Marauders unit.

The U10s have improved sight out of mind this season!

Their footy-minds just clicked and after a few years of trying to figure it all out they are hitting the ground running which is awesome.

Coaches Daniel Bezuidenhout, Jordan Rimmington and Adam Cook are building on BJ Linaker’s training of the past few years and they have them working hard.

The boys have won one game this season but have only lost the rest by a few points, which is really promising.

The U11s have had a ripper of a season so far and are not looking like stopping!

Trained by Kayla Ridgeway, the boys are in top form and they have worked hard to get themselves to 4th on the ladder which lines them up nicely for semi finals.

They are hungry for the wins and are a great tight team unit.

The U14s had a really rocky start to the season.

We had so few players return to sign up this year in our age group that it was doubtful we would have the numbers.

As the doubt increased, more families took their sons to other clubs, which is a shame but understandable. The remaining players (at this time around 8) and parents, with the club, put in a huge effort over a few weeks to reach as many potential players as possible to get at least 15 players.

The kids begged their mates at school, parents facebooked and got the local Christian school to highlight the need for players.

The hard work payed off and we now have a team of 22 great boys. Out of these 22 (aged between 11 and 15) approximately 8 have played rugby union before with a couple have come from League, many though had never passed a ball or tackled before.

Coached by Tony Woodfield, Shane Wood and Dwayne Murphy, the boys have had to start from scratch to form new bonds and learn each other’s playing styles, not to mention that half the team needed to learn how to play the game at all.

Fortunately they are a great, responsive group of boys who are learning well and are giving it their all every week.

Mark and Tom Underwood have also provided training assistance which is much appreciated.

As expected games have not been easy and there have been a fair number of injuries, which is the coach’s main focus at this point.

We are now in talks with Hunter Junior Rugby Union to get some extra coaching and development assistance for the boys which is a real bonus.

This team has incredible potential and if they can improve their game together for this season and another we know that they will make their presence known in the competition.

Medowie and Districts Junior Rugby is a small club, surrounded by giants, but we have some great local talent coming through that we are determined to help grow.

If there are any keen rugby-heads in the community who are happy to volunteer their time at training on Tuesdayand Thursday nights we appreciate any help or advice.

Contact Jimmy Hough on 0422 072 713. Thank you again to all of our 2016 Sponsors.

Go Marauders!!!

 

By Jude WOODFIELD