Happy to report on an amazing Princeton 7s Tournament to which Monmouth brought 5 teams, 60 athletes and 4 coaches. Monmouth had by far the biggest numerical presence of any club even hosts Princeton. It was a challenge to follow all the teams progress particularly given the delayed start due to a thunderstorm that came through as the tournament was beginning.
Three out of our sevens teams won silverware in the tournament and while huge congratulations should go to our Men, U19 boys and U19 girls we have to acknowledge that these were performances built upon practicing as a club for 8 weeks with shared resources and coaching. This is a format we are going to build upon over the next seasons where we maximize our coaching and facilities. We are #morethanaclub and the closer we work together the stronger we are. I am also running youth flag in CBA before practice on Thursday for kids – please get as many young rugby players out this summer so we can start local youth flag leagues in September – go to njrubgy.com for more details.
One of USA Rugby’s current goals is to increase the amount of rugby being played to improve the development of the game in the US – this is one of our goals also as Monmouth moves forward and it is exciting to be part of the massive growth of the game in our area. To play more games we need to improve our rugby resources.
Next Thursday we will have our next Rugby Committee meeting where we will be putting together our coaching and management development plans for 2015/6. One of our biggest challenges is practice facilities and we need to work hard on securing quality floodlit facilities in a long term arrangement preferably close to Red Bank and the Parkway. Those of you who have seen our practices at CBA this summer with enough space for all of us to work together can see the benefits of this process but unfortunately there are no floodlights at CBA so it is only a summer venue.
Please contact me if you want to join the Monmouth Rugby in a coaching or management role. If you want to join the Rugby Committee and help with the planning and management please contact me before Thursday.
For the players and coaches there are two practices and one tournament to go in the Summer sevens series so let’s build on our progress this summer and enter the maximum number of teams and athletes next week.
These are exciting times for Monmouth Rugby – join us in being part of the future of rugby!
Pat Moroney
Director of Rugby & Men’s Head Coach
pat@monmouthrugbyclub.com
pat@monmouthrugbyclub.com