Why Play Tag Rugby?

Tag rugby is a game that focuses itself upon running and passing, where agility, speed and good hand-eye coordination are more important skills than brute force and strength. Tag rugby is a phenomenal way to practice basic rugby skills for all levels. Believe me even the England 1st XI could learn from a bit more tag rugby. In this game more opportunity is given to practise tactics and plays rather then brute force. The game can be played without worrying of injury, but instead allowing players to concentrate on their skills of agility and speed, which are more then necessary in the full contact version of the game.

As a child I played tag rugby and loved every second, my growth happened later in the teenage years of childhood and as a result I never took to the contact game until much later then everybody else. I was a afraid of injury and pain that I associated with contact rugby, but tag rugby was fantastic. I became quite an incredible tag rugby player, with the ability to pick out plays and opportunities that my stronger counterparts never learnt in contact rugby, preferring to concentrate their energies on harder tackles and longer kicks. I don’t deny the importance of these, but in the long run, when my confidence grew and I took to full contact rugby, it was me that became the captain of the team. It was me that was the star because the basic fundamental skills I learnt earlier kicked in. The things that you have to physically think about disappeared and genuinely payed off in full contact. I’ve always had the rugby player’s vision, the ability to detect plays and formulate tactics almost subconsciously and I owe it all to those hours of tag rugby.

The moral of the story being that strength and power are not the fundamentals of rugby, they are vital in a successful team, but it is the likes of Johnny Wilkinson that have shown us that the vision and skills deployed behind the frontline tacklers can have devastating affects. Skills that can be honed, practised and perfected in the non contact game of tag rugby.

It is such a shame that the game of tag rugby is so often written off as the wimp’s version of “real” rugby, the game is beautiful, not pathetic as my school mates were so insistent it was. The taggers will show them in the end.

The ITRA website:(http://www.tagrugby.i e/index.cfm)

The rules of tag rugby:(http://www.coachingrugb y.com/tag/laws/laws.htm)