U10 rugby drills
The season the game arrives properly. Rucking and scrummaging both turn up at U10 on top of a tackle your squad only met last year, which is a lot to fit into an hour at training.
Free to browse. Pick U10 and that's the setup done. No account needed.
What the U10 game looks like
U10 adds the ruck, the maul and an uncontested scrum to the tackle your grade learned at U9. There's no lineout at U10 and none at any minis grade, because Regulation 15 keeps touch restarting with a free pass through U13. Nothing on this page assumes otherwise, so a lineout drill won't show up in an U10 session by accident.
Rucks, mauls and the uncontested scrum arrive. The lineout does not, that waits for U14. Regulation 15 sets this out. It was never left to a coach's judgement. The U10 rules of play are the version that counts to a referee, they're reissued every season, so check yours there rather than trusting a copy on somebody else's website. Ours included.
New to the grade? What changes at U10 goes through the ruck, the maul and the three player scrum.
What to work on at U10
- What happens immediately after the tackle. The tackle itself is last year's work. Placing the ball, rolling away and arriving on your feet is this year's.
- Arriving low and staying on your feet. The two commonest U10 penalties in one sentence.
- Scrum shape without any push. Three players bound properly, going nowhere. It's duller than they want it to be, which is the price of keeping necks safe.
- Not losing the handling. Twenty-nine of these drills are still passing. The squad that only rucks all winter is a squad that can't move a ball in March.
U10 is the grade where a session plan starts genuinely mattering. There's more to cover than there are weeks in the term, so a session that drifts costs you something real. The ready-made U10 sessions here each pick one theme and stay on it, because covering rucking, scrums and handling properly in one hour isn't a thing anybody has managed.
What is in Equal Play for U10
Pick U10 and the catalogue shows 84 drills: 25 warm-ups plus 59 exercises. Every one of them is written for the grade, so whatever you pick is something your squad is ready for. It's not a filter somebody can switch off by mistake.
| Theme | Drills |
|---|---|
| Handling and passing | 29 |
| Evasion and footwork | 24 |
| Tackle | 15 |
| Ruck and maul | 11 |
| Scrum and restarts | 5 |
| Game sense | 25 |
7 ready-made U10 sessions
Every one runs 45 to 60 minutes with the water breaks counted in, so the total on screen is the time you actually booked. Open one and swap out the bits you don't fancy.
- Rucking
- Scrums and restarts
- The tackle and what comes next
- Quick hands
- Beating the first defender
- Match week
- Three rucks at once
Common questions
What can U10s do that U9s cannot?
Ruck and maul, plus an uncontested scrum. U9 is tackle only. The step from one to the other is the largest single jump in the minis game, which is why an U10 season tends to feel busier than any other.
Can U10s have a lineout?
No. No minis grade has one. RFU Regulation 15 keeps touch restarting with a free pass through U13 and brings the uncontested lineout in at U14. So restarts and free kicks are worth more of your session time than most coaches give them.
How long is an U10 rugby session?
An hour of activity is the usual booking and it's enough if you pick one theme and stay on it. The U10 sessions here run between 45 and 60 minutes with the water breaks already counted, because the minutes you forget are always the ones that make you overrun.
What should an U10 rugby session include?
One theme, a warm-up that involves a ball, a decent block on whatever the theme is, then a game that makes them use it. Rucking taught in isolation for an hour doesn't survive contact with a match.
Other age groups
What changes at U10 goes through the ruck and the scrum. What every age grade plays, side by side. The grade before this one is U9. The one after is U11.
Equal Play is not affiliated with the RFU. Regulation 15 is theirs. We link to it rather than reproduce it so you always get the current season's version. Read against the RFU's 2026/27 appendices in August 2026.