Regulation 15 playing time: a coach's guide

Age grade rugby in England caps how long a child may play and sets a minimum they should get. Here is how the two are structured, where to find the numbers for your age group and how to make sure every child in your squad actually clears the floor.

What Regulation 15 is

Regulation 15 is the RFU regulation covering age grade rugby. Every player from Under 6 through to Under 18. It sets out the rules of play for each year group, the progressions from tag through to the full contact game and the limits on how much rugby a child may play.

The regulation itself is a relatively short document. The detail that matters to a coach on match day lives in the appendices, one per age group, each giving that year's rules of play, numbers per side, pitch size and playing time.

How playing time is governed

There are two separate limits and coaches routinely only think about one of them.

The maximum, which changes with the grade

A cap on how much rugby a child may play in a single day, going up a grade at a time as they get older. It is the day that counts rather than the match, so four short games across a morning add up against it. This is the one that catches out festivals and tournaments, where a squad can quietly rack up game after game across a morning. It is a welfare limit, not a target. The figures are in your grade's appendix.

The minimum, which is the same at every grade

This one has a name: the Half Game Rule. Every player in the match day squad plays at least half of the available playing time. It is not a guideline and it does not soften at the younger grades. It covers every age grade match, contact or not, festivals and tournaments included. Available playing time is the time the match was given, so across a morning of four short games it is the whole morning rather than each game on its own.

It is the one that gets missed, because nothing on the pitch reminds you about it. Nobody notices the child who played eight minutes; they notice the score.

Finding the figures for your age group

1. Go to the RFU's Regulation 15 page.
2. Open the appendix for your age group. They are published as separate rules of play documents, numbered by age.
3. Check the effective date at the top. If it isn't the current season, you've got an old copy.

A child's age group is determined by how old they are at midnight on 31 August, so a player's age grade holds for the whole season regardless of when their birthday falls.

Knowing the rule is the easy bit

Most coaches can find out that there is a floor. Hitting it, for fourteen children, across four short games, while two of them arrived late and one has gone off with a dead leg, is a different problem. It is arithmetic, done badly, in the cold.

What tends to go wrong:

• Counting matches instead of minutes. "She played in three of the four games" says nothing about how long she was on for.
• Losing track after a disruption. A late arrival or an injury resets everyone's mental sums and the plan on the back of the team sheet is now wrong.
• The same children rounded down. When a squad doesn't divide evenly somebody has to come up short. Without a record it's the same quiet child every week.
• Only checking at the end. By the time you add it up in the car park it's too late to fix.

Making the minimum happen

Half is the floor and an even split is the higher target, so work out the even split first. The equal playing time calculator does it in one sum. Watch the size of your squad while you do it, because there is a point where the maths runs out: if more than twice as many turn up as go on the pitch, nobody can give everybody half. Seven a side with sixteen in the squad is an even split of just under 44% of the day, so somebody finishes under the floor however well you rotate. That is a fixture problem rather than a rotation problem. Play more matches, put out a second team or name a smaller match day squad.

The floor is measured on the day rather than across the season, so clearing it is this morning's job. Balancing who came up short last week is the fairness that sits above it. Either way, track it as you go rather than reconstructing it afterwards. Equal Play builds a rotation across the whole session, rebalances the remaining games when somebody arrives late or goes off and gives you a per-child total at the end, which is a much better answer for a parent than a shrug.

Plan my rotation

Common questions

What is Regulation 15?

The RFU regulation covering age grade rugby in England, from Under 6 through to Under 18. It sets the rules of play for each year group, the progression from tag through to the full contact game and the limits on how much rugby a child may play. The detail a coach needs sits in the appendices, one per age group.

What is the Half Game Rule?

The RFU rule that every player in the match day squad plays at least half of the available playing time. It runs across the whole age grade game, contact and non-contact, festivals and tournaments included. Available playing time means the minutes the match was given, so a morning of four short games is measured as the morning rather than game by game.

Is there a minimum playing time in age grade rugby?

Yes. It is the Half Game Rule rather than a figure that changes with the grade. What changes with the grade is the maximum, the cap on how much rugby a child may play in a day. Coaches tend to know about that one because it is framed as a safety limit. The floor is the one that gets missed, because nothing on the pitch reminds you about it.

Where do I find the playing time figures for my age group?

In the RFU's own appendix for that grade, on the Regulation 15 page. The figures differ by age group and the regulation is revised between seasons, so a copy on a third-party site is worse than no copy at all. Check the effective date at the top of whatever you open.

How do I make sure every child reaches the minimum?

Work out the even split first so you know what you are aiming at, then track it as you go rather than reconstructing it in the car park afterwards. Check the squad against the pitch first: an even split only clears the floor when no more than twice as many turned up as go on at once. Above that, no rotation can do it and the answer is more matches or a second team.

Which age group is a child in?

Whichever grade they fit at midnight on 31 August. A player's age grade holds for the whole season regardless of when their birthday falls.

The rest of Equal Play

Match day is one half of it. The other half is the Tuesday before: a catalogue of 100 drills for minis rugby, written for the age group you coach under Regulation 15, plus a session planner that adds the minutes up while you build so you find out at the kitchen table rather than at the pitch.

• Rugby drills by age group, U7 to U12, with what arrives when
• U9 drills, the tackle year, plus U10 once rucks arrive
• Ready-made sessions for every grade, free to read with no account

Open Equal Play