South Wales Jets are delighted to announce that the club will be running sides in most of the WRL leagues this season.
As a club, we have 40 registered with the senior men’s side and now we have plenty of players actively registering to play at junior levels.
Club chairman Liam Price is pleased at the uptake this year and has chosen to address concerns of how the club puts a cap on the amount of people who can play for each side.
“We had a very big uptake this year, especially in the U8s section,” he said. “We had over 60 children wanting to play for us, but as a club right now, we’re unable to accommodate that many.
“Due to the amount of coaches we have, we were only able to accept 40 children at that level. We would love to take everyone but with what we do and the experience we offer it’s not fair on the children who would never be able to get the game time and it’s certainly not fair on the coaches who offer their time as volunteers.
“Apart from doing first come first served, this was the only way we could get over 60 down to 40.
“So we ran some taster sessions and I realise in some quarters they’ve been viewed as trials, but that’s not the case.
“We invited all who had expressed interest in playing to the sessions. Some people decided it wasn’t for them and then it was down to the coaches to decide what we went forward with.
“We didn’t judge it on playing ability. You can’t do that at that age.
“Last year we had one child wanting to fight others we had one trying to bite others. It’s about making sure it’s the right fit for both parties.
“For us, it’s a mixture of things. It’s how they mixed with others, how they behaved, how they interacted, their ability to work as a team and their enjoyment.”
Jets’ U8s head coach Robert Coles adds: “We tried to select based on fairness and development of what we had which we appreciate was only a snapshot across four hours.
“Our focus was on enjoyment and skill development, rather than purely the best players, so we have players across the spectrum of confidence and competence.
“I felt it was also important to encourage them to keep developing and enjoying the game and although I haven’t signposted them directly to other clubs, I have tried to be as professional and compassionate as possible with messages.”
Matches at U8-11 levels in rugby league are non competitive. There are no league tables until U12.
Jets won the U12s league last year with many of those players now signing for the U13s side.
The club are also hoping to field two sides at U14 level as a big interest is being shown at that age group.
The senior men’s side continue pre-season training for the season that this year will hopefully kick-off in May.