Welcome to the 2024 winter rugby season. On behalf of the board and staff at the club I wish you the very best for the season ahead.  

The club has been on a journey to achieve our vision to be "New Zealand's leading community based sports club" and like all journeys there are ups and downs as the club navigates the turbulent waters of community sport.

In the junior club I am always heartened by the fantastic work of our volunteers and in particular the junior committee led by Paul Thompson and Garrick Henderson who work tirelessly to enable nearly 800 young people to enjoy the game we love.  The upcoming club day this coming Saturday will showcase this when we have all of our junior players take the field for rugby skills sessions and games against other Silverdale teams with the aim of experiencing an event that connects our local community.  I encourage all in attendance to make the most of the opportunity to catch up with friends, make new connections and enjoy what the club has to offer.

In the senior club, I am encouraged to see good numbers at pre-season training of local players who are striving for continuous improvement and development of their game.  Our focus is not on short term success by bringing players in from other regions, like some other clubs, but to build a lasting legacy of "coast rugby" who can, through hard work, perseverance and determination, showcase their skills on the bigger stages.  There is some fantastic work being done by a large group of volunteer coaches to build this legacy by working with our local colleges and schools to bring through and support our talent.  I am looking forward to seeing the intrepid U85's take the field in their first competition game this weekend at Northcote along with three other Silverdale teams this coming Saturday.   It will be a tough choice as to which direction to go as we also have our Premier Women playing at home who never fail to disappoint with an entertaining brand of rugby and our mighty Snails face off against the Glenfield Grizzlies at Kaipatiki Park.  

Rome wasn't built in a day and I wish to thank all our supporters, volunteers, players, sponsors, staff and anyone involved in the club for their ongoing support and commitment as we forge a path to achieve our goals. As always, special thanks to our club staff who make it all happen and in particular our thoughts go out to our newly appointed Junior Administrator, Myka Copeland, whose son Corrin is currently in hospital recovering from an operation.

Yours in Rugby

Hugh Goddard
Chairman

Please note changes to the times of several of our scheduled games.

Junior Coaches/Managers/Referees Evening

To streamline our administrative processes and ensure we are set up for the season, we kindly request all coaches & referees register online at https://www.sporty.co.nz/viewform/268825 and managers on https://www.sporty.co.nz/viewform/262886

Additionally, we would like to remind you of the coaches meeting scheduled for Tonight - Thursday 21st of March at 6pm. During this meeting, we will discuss important updates, strategies, and plans for the season ahead. Your presence and input are invaluable to us as we strive to enhance our program.

Date: Thursday 21st March
Time: 6.00pm
Location: Silverdale Rugby Club

Please confirm your attendance by replying to juniorrugby@silverdalerugby.co.nz

We making final adjustments to our Muster day programme and draw and will send this out to you very soon. In the interim please take note of the following key timings:

We need grades to be ready to go as follows:

J6 – J5                                   0800 – 0900hrs
J4 – J3                                   0900 – 1000hrs
J2 – J1                                   1000 – 1100hrs
Rip Grades U9 – U18     1100 – 1200hrs

All players to have boots, mouthguards and water. No mouth guard – No Play.

Managers – please arrive 5-10 minutes early and head to the clubrooms for uplifting your team gear bags.

Referees – we will need our team referees available to help and call the games

Coaches – we will need your help to run the drills, hold pads and work with your players.

The plan for each grade is a quick warm up, perform 2-3 skills and drills and then into games against fellow teams. We are aiming for 15minutes halves, J1 – J5 will be ½ field games and the objective is to ease back in to contact sport, referees to help keep the game moving, (quick scrums and lineouts). Jerseys will be in the gear bags, so quick transition from drills in to games necessary.

For our Rip Grades, we have such a large number of teams and may need to split fields into 3rds to make it work everyone. For U11 grades upwards, please come down with no expectation of playing full size fields, again, the objective is for us to ease in to rippa.

Thanks again for your patience, we’re looking forward to seeing everyone on Saturday.

Please stick around to watch our Womans Prems playing at 1.00pm

Note: We are aware of potential bad weather expected in the area.  We will send out updates closer to the time if cancellations are necessary.

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Please be on site at 5 pm to collect your Team Gear Bags - we want to have all players kitted up with Rips and ready for a warm-up at 5:15.

All players to have mouth guards and boots please.