Sunday conditions
A game sense drill for U12 and up, with where the cones go, how it runs and what to say when it is not working.
Free to read with no account. It works at a pitch with no signal too.
- Age grades
- U12
- Time
- 15 minutes
- Players
- 14 to 24
- Space
- 60 x 43 m
- Kit
- 12 cones, 2 balls
- Pitch
- Wants a forgiving surface
Setting it up
Full age grade pitch, full age grade rules, proper teams. A referee who blows for everything.
How it runs
Just play. Fifteen minutes with the actual rules of play for your age grade, including the scrum, refereed properly. Nothing conditioned. Stop it twice, no more and only for something that will happen again on Sunday. The last thing they should do most weeks is play rugby.
What to watch for
- Play what is in front of you
- Keep talking through the stoppages, not just in open play
- Every restart is a chance. Be organised before the whistle
Make it easier
- Shorter halves
- Fewer players and a smaller pitch
Make it harder
- Play uncontested for one team to work a weakness
What it looks like when it is going wrong
What you can see from the touchline, then the one thing to say about it.
- Talking only when the ball is live, silence at every stoppage
- The stoppage is when you sort yourselves out. Use it
- Waiting for a coach to organise them at each restart
- Set yourselves. I am not going to tell you
Safety. Full age grade rules including every contact restriction for the grade. Referee the tackle height and the ruck properly. If a child is tired enough to be tackling badly, take them off.
The RFU's Headcase is where to go for what to do after a bang on the head. It is theirs rather than ours.
More like this
The grades that can do it
What U12 rugby allows is the rule this sits under. Regulation 15 is reissued every summer, so the RFU's own rules of play are the ones to read for this season rather than a copy on somebody else's website. Ours included. Read against the RFU's 2026/27 appendices in August 2026.