Staffordshire Under 17’s
Assessment event Staffordshire U17 25th March 2024 at Longton RFC 1900-2130 hrs
This will be the third season the U17 has been formed without the benefit of Staffordshire running a U16 team. Leicester Tigers have operated the programme and in February 2024 the players returned to Staffordshire in 2 pre-season training evenings and were provisional assessed by the U17/U18 delivery team. The total number of players already initially assessed by March is expected to be circa 35.
We are holding an assessment evening at Longton RFC on Monday 25th March 2024. However, because we already have players assessed, we are only wanting to add about another 10-15 players to the squad, all of whom must be U17 players in the Season 2023-2024.
The objective is to find late developers and new players to the game not already highlighted to the county through Leicester Tigers. Therefore, please only put forward outstanding players of physical and technical ability.
If we get an excess of nominations from one source, we will need to review the list before the assessment event as a paperwork review and invite accordingly. We are only allowed by the RFU calendar one assessment event for all players.
The assessment event will consist of a combination of forward and back drills plus a short full contact game, split into 4 quarters to allow changes. From the assessment event we intend to select a squad of 45-50 players to take through to the Squad Development evenings in April, we may then reduce the numbers based on a further assessment to end up with the U17 initial Squad.
For the initial squad there will be 3 training sessions and 5 games up to the 2nd June, with a training session on the Monday of each game week. For each game we will select 23 players out of the total squad and apply the half game rule so all players selected will get game time so they can be fully assessed.
Prior to the final 2 games of the U17 season 26th May and 2nd June, we will reduce the number of players in the squad circa 30-32 players to form the core squad which we will fully test at U17 and carry through players to U18.
Please email to me the proposed players for trial and the completed Staffordshire Registration Form 2023-2024 U18 (Revised 2018)
Kind regards
Stephen Eastwood