Monday 11th July - First coaching sessions

Today was the first day of why we came here. Coaching Tag Rugby to our schools. The Welling Team split into two with the idea of going into two different schools in the morning and then two different schools for the afternoon. George, Hannah, James, Joe and Peter were Team 1 while Abbi, Harry, Rebeca, Charlie and Grant were Team 2. Team 1 were to be dropped off at a school called Grand IQ but when we arrived they were not keen on disturbing their normal morning lessons so it was decided that both Teams would go to Zoc's School for the morning session before they split and revert to their planned schools for the afternoon. We all thought that the morning session would be easy. Two Teams, lots of coaches and equipment for a small amount of children. We were in for a shock!

We were met with what seemed like hundreds of excited children of all ages. The idea was to coach Grade 5 but we could not tell who was who and had no way of organising such a huge amount of people. The children were would not leave the sides of the Welling Team but eventually they managed to regain some order and begin their sessions.

We soon realised that the whole school had left their classes to come out and watch. How the Welling pupils managed any constructive coaching was beyond our expectations, but they did it, and they did it brilliantly. There were so many people around some of the Welling Pupils that they could not lift up their arms through lack of space. There was lots of interaction and conversation; an absolutely amazing start to the week.

For the afternoon sessions, Team 1 jumped onto the minibus to St Patricks while Team 2 started their trek through the countryside to Mount Makubu. There seemed to be more order to these schools and the Welling Pupils thrived and delivered two fantastic sessions to a large group of extremely appreciative children. We were told by one of the Teachers that attendance would be 100% for the rest of the week once the pupils realised we would be returning. It would probably surpass 100% once the word spread to the greater community.

In one of the groups there was a very young girl of around 9/10 years old who participated with a baby strapped to her back.



At the end of the day, back at Base, the Welling Teams planned for tomorrows sessions. They will all sleep well tonight........i hope!