National Under 18s Boy’s Cup Competition

Dear Club Contact

Congratulations on making the draw for the Boys’ Under 18 National Cup for the 2025/26 season.

The round dates are set by the Age Grade Calendar and take priority over league fixtures. If you have a league game allocated to one of the dates listed above, you must liaise with your Colts league secretary to rearrange the league fixture.

Draw:

The draw is attached, detailing the fixtures and progression channels if successful. The first named team in the top box is the home team. All fixtures will be added to GMS by 22 August 2025. There is no requirement for you to add them as manual fixtures.

If you are now unable to compete in the competition, please let us know asap as we have teams on a waiting list.

Contacts:

All future communication will be sent to the:

• Club Contact – provided on the entry application.

Attached is the contact sheet for the competition. The password will be sent in another email shortly. Please, check that your details are correct. If not, let us know asap.

Regulations:

The final regulations are live on the England Rugby website for future reference and can be found here. Any changes to these regulations will be communicated with all participants.

Half-Game Rule:
Please be aware of the Half game rule regulation within Regulation 15. More information on this can be found here.

GMS:

Roles

Please, ensure that each of your coaches, team managers and first aiders have the appropriate role assigned to their personal GMS profile. You should then assign the coach, team manager to the Team under the Team Management section of GMS. All coaches, first aiders and team managers should have a DBS in place and have the recommended qualifications to carry out their role.

Roles: https://help.rfu.com/support/solutions/articles/103000063997-assigning-removing-roles

Team management: https://help.rfu.com/support/solutions/articles/103000064000-assign-and-remove-a-coach-team-manager-to-a-team

Electronic Match Cards

The competition will again be using Electronic Match Card (EMC) this season. ALL teams are required to use Electronic Match Cards. Please, ensure that a member of your coaching team or team manager has the required permissions and role to manage the Electronic Match Card. All fixtures will be managed via an electronic match card. Please, familiarise yourself with the process before the start of the season. All match cards must be completed by both teams. The home team is responsible for adding in the score and the number of tries and conversions at the end of the match as well as confirming the match card.

Match Cards: https://help.rfu.com/support/solutions/folders/103000371485

Can’t Access EMC

Please ensure that you have both the role of ‘Match Card Administrator’ for your club and a permission level assigned of 1, 3 or 5. Contact your clubs Data officer or Honorary Secretary if you do not have these, to be assigned to you.

Player Registration:

Please, ensure that all your players are registered to play age grade rugby. Any player not registered cannot be selected to play and named on a match card.

New Registration: https://help.rfu.com/support/solutions/articles/103000064034-new-age-grade-player-registration-for-a-parent-guardian

Renew Registration: https://help.rfu.com/support/solutions/articles/103000064058-renew-age-grade-child-registration-process

You can run a report on GMS to find out which players have registered.

Report: https://help.rfu.com/support/solutions/articles/103000064062-player-registrations-report-in-gms

To name a player on a match card, they must be registered to play and have been assigned to the squad under the Team Management section of GMS.

Assigning a player: https://help.rfu.com/support/solutions/articles/103000064025-assigning-players-to-teams

All players must be registered for that Club on the RFU GMS database at the time of the Round 1 fixture. For all other fixtures from Round 2 onwards, all players must be registered for that Club on the RFU GMS database on or before 17 October 2025. Any player registered after 17 October 2025 is not eligible to play in the competition.

Match Officials:

Fixtures are pushed into the Who’s the Ref allocation system directly. It is the responsibility of the home team to ensure that a society referee is appointed and that they have no connection with either team.

Should you have any queries or require further clarification, please contact competitions-development@rfu.com.

Best wishes

Sabrina

RFU Competition Operations Team