Tail snatch
An evasion and footwork warm-up for U7 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
- U7, U8, U9, U10, U11, U12
- Time
- 6 minutes
- Players
- 6 to 24
- Space
- 20 x 20 m
- Kit
- 8 cones, 2 tags per player
- Pitch
- Fine on hard ground
Setting it up
Four cones in a square. Every player wears two tags. No balls for the first round.
How it runs
On go, everyone tries to take somebody else's tag while keeping their own. Dropped tags stay where they fall. Lose both of yours and you do five squats then rejoin. Ninety seconds, reset the tags, go again. Nobody stands still in this one, which is the whole point of putting it first.
What to watch for
- Small steps close to someone, long steps when you have space
- Turn your hips away from the hand reaching for you
- Eyes up. The ones who get caught are watching their own tags
Make it easier
- Bigger square
- One tag each instead of two
Make it harder
- Shrink the square by a metre every thirty seconds
- Two hunters with no tags of their own against everyone else
What it looks like when it is going wrong
What you can see from the touchline, then the one thing to say about it.
- Long strides right up to the person they are chasing
- Chop your steps down as you get close
- Eyes on their own tags instead of up
- Head up. Watch where you are going, not your waist
More like this
The grades that can do it
What U7 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.