NORTH East Worcestershire Ravens are delighted by the continued development of the club, particularly the junior section.
After only fielding an under 12s team last season, there has been a massive influx of junior players from across Worcestershire, Birmingham and the Black Country.
The juniors will be attending their first festival of the season on Sunday, June 21 in Nottingham and are expecting to field U15s, U13s, U11s, U9s and U7s teams.
Players range from complete novices to experienced players from clubs like Kings Norton, Alcester, Bromsgrove, Redditch, Old Halesonians, Stourbridge, Malvern and Droitwich.
The success has been put down to the new England RFL player development programme ‘Embed the Pathway’, which is being followed by all ages at the club.
Embed the Pathway is the England head coaches’ ten-year plan to regularly beat Australia by increasing the sport talent pool nationally.
The programme develops rugby skills, movement skills and mental toughness that are all key attributes required in world class athletes. Most of the players have not experienced such a different approach to coaching before but are putting 100 per cent effort in and thriving on it.
The youngsters in the Ravens’ first team learned a difficult lesson on Saturday with a heavy loss to reigning Midlands champions Northampton Demons, but positives were the debuts of two more players.
Players have seen what they are aiming to emulate after playing against such a fine team and Andrew Quirke, Northampton Demons team manager, said: “Ravens have a good young team who played with commitment and never gave up.
“They have huge potential and just need to keep working hard and the results will come for them.”
Ravens are away to Nottingham Outlaws on Saturday.
