KUCHING: Kuching Rugby and Football Club’s (KRFC) junior rugby players, the Blackcatz Kittens, wrapped up their season at the clubhouse at Song Kheng Hai Ground on Thursday with a final practice and a barbecue party.
LET’S STRETCH: Taylor (second right) and Palmer (right) lead the Blackcatz Kittens in some stretching exercise at the Song Kheng Hai Ground.
KRFC president Dick Bentham said the Kittens, especially those children of expatriates working in Kuching, will be returning to Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom with their parents for the year-end school holidays.
“It will be the end of the season for those kids from Tunku Putra International School and Lodge School but we will continue to train the local kids,” he said when met at the club. Dick said the party was also organised to promote camaraderie among the Kittens, friendship among their parents and also to bid farewell to former coaches Allan Marsh and Adrian Wilkes who will be returning to Australia.
“It’s also to welcome our new head coach William Taylor and his assistant Phil Palmer,” he said.
Taylor, who took over the coaching from Marsh last week, said his predecessor had done a marvelous job and he wants to continue the good work done by the former coaches with Palmer.
“There is plenty that needs to be done as the kids including a lot of girls and numbering more than thirty-five, are all in different age groups, with the youngest at six years old while the eldest is 13. It would be difficult to teach them same skills as we have many young kids on the pitch,” he said.
He added that they already have the fundamentals and he is starting to get the older boys to do tackling while the younger ones and the girls are still doing ‘tag’ rugby.
They practice every Thursday from 4:30pm to 6pm.
The practice/training session usually starts with some basic exercise workouts for the warming up, followed by ball passing, British Bulldog game and a half hours of game.
“I can see that there are some good players among the kids and I can imagine that some of them will be playing competitive rugby in a few years time,” said Taylor.
He said those parents interested in getting their kids to learn playing rugby can bring them to the training ground every Thursday afternoon.
The Blackcatz Kittens was formed in March last year with eight players and has grown to more than 35, mostly of whom are children of locals and expatriates from United Kingdom, Australia and South Korea living and working in Kuching.
They are known as “kittens” in the Kuching rugby fraternity and form part of KRFC’s development programme where they are taught the fundamentals of the game and play tag rugby where no body contact or tackles are made.