Our Players of the Year - Well done all!!

We split the Player of the Year Awards this year on the advice of someone in another team as the “blokes always get all the glory”. Not in our team they don’t! But we thought we’d recognise as many people as possible anyway.

Male player of the year – Gareth Barton

I remember Dennis Coffey the secretary general of the Federation of International Touch (and one of our award runners-up) saying that Soccer players found the conversion to Touch easiest and he might have had Gareth in mind when he said this. Mr Barton has only made his tournament debut in August at the Bath NTS but won our player of the tournament and continued to score crucial scores in the Warwick tournament and NTS Finals.

As someone wrote when voting for someone else “Getting to the 5m is one thing, knowing what to do when you get there is the key” and Gareth is one of a couple of players who have a ruddy clue what to do on line attack.

Female Player of the year – Catherine Roberts

I was really pleased that Catherine won this one, she always seems to be the second best player at tournaments and so never quite wins the player of the tournament award, Catherine is our only real “steady and consistent” player as everyone else seems to lurch wildly from ace to absolutely blinkin awful .

She was also magnificent in Bath despite suffering from the raging trots. Well done Cath!

Most improved bloke – Tom Powlay

When he first turned up at the club I didn’t think Tom was going to amount to much, Tom has been playing Union for years and seemed to only come along to support his friend. Within three weeks Tom was playing like a natural and had made himself an integral part of the team, showing he may be rich beyond our wildest dreams but he’s a social chameleon who can lower himself to converse with us proletariat.

He really can’t pass though, whether it’s a 1m pop or a 40m long ball, the technique and velocity are exactly the same; bastard hard and aimed at your feet.

Most Improved Female – Sarah Jean Kelly.

Did someone say “hotly contested”? No? This award most definitely was, any of the Duffness, Prebs or Sarah Jean could have walked away with this one but a couple of late votes tipped it in Sarahs Direction.

Sarah has got serious Gas, the best planting technique on the team and an eye for a gap. At the start of the season I thought she’d make a good wing, by the end of it she was an NTS standard link. Sarah Jean is also epically grumpy off the field. Which I like.

Top scorer

Me! Again! You’ll note I didn’t win an award, it’s a conspiracy.

The Gareth Hill Award for doing stuff you don’t want to do in the name of Touch

Although Catherine and Jo put in sterling work to sort out our magnificent Purple Kit and Clare took up refereeing (and even ran a Monday night when Gareth and I were away) this award goes to Emily Kelly, who despite selfishly having a knee operation that meant she couldn’t play, still turned up at tournaments and training to keep us in Haribo Starmix and be the official photographer of me looking pasty and fat in a vest.

A Monday Night, probably.

Monday Night Player of The Year

Alasdair Teager – who only occasionally rocked up but made everyone on his team look better. He got the skills that pay the bills and is one of those annoying people who make awesome play look effortless as well as being a really nice bloke. I take comfort in his baldness, though when I’m a slaphead I’ll still be useless.

Hypochondriac of the year - Gareth Hill.

Nobody doubts that Gareth is carrying injuries but just read his Facebook updates to see how much he complains about them BEFORE he plays. This year he’s taken Pre-Tournament Psychosomatic Hypochondria to new levels. None of us even know what ITBS is, but he swears it’s a proper injury.

Photo of the Year

As a happily married man I can’t see where the attraction is in this photo. Its proved very popular though.

I don't know either

Hero of the Year

This is the award that is given to someone who doesn’t live in the area who has still gone out of their way to make a contribution to our season. Special mention needs to be made of Dennis Coffey who took time out from his hectic world cup schedule to run a session for us and Iwan Davies who starred for us in Bath and Warwick.

But the winner by a landslide is Kevin Hobbs who has braved the A483 all the way from Cardiff on numerous occasions to train our players, coached and referees. He also does a load of unseen work answering tons of questions by e-mail from me. Hobbs we all salute you!

Worst Irish Accent of the Year

Eileen “tarmac your drive?” Duff. At least people can work out what I’m trying to say when I attempt one.

Feel free to add your own!

Our new kit - gotta work on those guns

We are now in our winter break – if you are interested in training with our mixed team in the winter or playing for us next summer feel free to get in touch!

Female Players Wanted.

We are currently recruiting female players to join our mixed team and help form our women’s team, we already have a wide range of abilities at the club from the likes of Nia, Pam, Jo and Catherine who have trained with Wales squads to some who have only just picked up a ball. If you are looking to get fit and make new friends or want to play competitively then come along to one of our sessions or contact or Assistant Coach Pam Tomlinson at info@wrexhamtouch.co.uk for more information.

Coming along to one of our sessions for the first time? Then click here to have a read of our beginners guide

What is touch?

A Safe, fun, minimal contact, non-collision team sport similar to rugby. There are male, female and mixed teams, its cheap to play, easy to pick up but difficult to master. It was developed as a training tool for Rugby League in the 1970s but is now a sport in its own right and is the number one sport in schools in New Zealand and played all over Australia.

Its a great way to get fit and meet new friends.

Monday Open Game.

In the summer we run a non-competitive open game on a Monday Night, 6.30pm at Wrexham Rugby Club. We get a total mix of abilities, ages and fitness levels.

Skills/Team Training – Wednesdays

We also run a Skills/Team Training night on a Wednesday that anyone is welcome to attend if they want to learn about the game, same time, same place!

Whether you want to try touch for the first time or just get fit without the grind of the treadmill then come along to either night, you’ll be given a warm welcome and we hope you’ll soon be as hooked as we are.

For more information contact Matt Overson at info@wrexhamtouch.co.uk or 07716330206

I have no idea whats going on here

Widnes/NTS/Warwick Tournaments

Apologies for the delay in writing much recently, everything seems to have got on top of me and as we change the team name etc i’ve also been preparing the new website. If i’m honest i should try and keep my large admin tasks to the winter and just try and keep this sight ticking over in the meantime!

Since I last posted we have been to three tournaments with results that can only be described as “mixed”. A tourney in Halton, The Bath NTS and the return tournament with our friends in Warwick!

Due to injury I missed the Halton tournament and no-one has come forward with a report so i’ll rapidly gloss over our slightly erm, rubbish results. I’m told the team actually played well but its difficult when we have to borrow ringers or players who havent trained with us, especially as the standard was so high at this one.

Our player of the tournament was Kate Edwards – making her debut for the team and playing like a champion. So i’m told anyway.

The last wear of the old kit - in Halton

Bath NTS

I’d recovered for this one, a little gutted that my training regime had gone to pot but glad to at least be there. We made a much better fist of this than we did last year. Did we win a game? No! Did we bother a few top teams? Yes indeed. Our thanks must go to our two South Walian based gogs by attitude Kevin Hobbs and Iwan Davies, who both played superbly.

The most pleasing thing about the day was how we stuck to what we had trained, even when receiving a hammering and how much we learned. I even made the effort to be vaguely social, though after my comments about crackling i’m sure a few of the team would prefer me to not bother next time.

There were scores for last years returning captain Nia, Gareth B got a couple, Hobbs got three and someone else score because we got seven on the day. Oddly enough I only ensure the scores are recorded when I get a load myself.

Player of the tournament – Gareth Barton, First tournament, talented ball player, nice bloke, good gun. Not fair

Hangtime in Bath

Warwick Touch Fest

In an odd fit of keeness the team announced at the NTS that they wanted more tournamenst and they wanted them soon. So we all travelled down to a tournament ran by our good friends from Warwick.

This was very very tiring, we basically played 6 games with a 5 minute break between each, the standard was mixed which is reflected in our results which ranged from a 8 – 0 thrashing of a team from Solihull to a good Oxford side beating us 6 – 1. But we made the show Semi-final which is always nice.

We also played a 2 lads 4 ladies split and its a reflection of how awesome our ladies played that we did so well.

Player of the tournament – Sarah Kelly. Our future England international has good hands, plenty of gas and an eye for a gap. Still only 18 too, Not Fair.

Non-player of the tournament – Me. I was a chump, sorry.

Pam takes on Widnes, with Nathan in support

Was this my favourite day in touch? I think it may have been. We were really lucky that all the teams came with the attitude of enjoying themselves first and winning second (though to be fair winning seemed to come a lot easier to Widnes than it did to the rest of the teams!).

I’d like at this point to make some comments about how the other teams played but, if i’m honest, I lost track a little while I was playing, coaching, refereeing and tournament organising so apologies if this write up is almost entirely “north wales touch”-centric. (for those confused we are playing as North Wales Touch!)

Lymm 3 – 10 North Wales Touch (scorers Matt x2, Eileen x2, Emily x2)*

I dont think us lads have been outscored by the ladies on the team before but we were shown the way to the scoreline by our debutant (and token wacky irisher) Eileen and team gob Emily. Eileen would end the day as our joint second top scorer this season, its sickening when people just take to the sport so easily. I’ve been playing for 8 years now and i’m still useless.

Moment of the game – Eileen getting two on her debut.

North Wales Touch 1 – 9 Widnes (scorer Nathan)

We were schooled a bit in this one, Widnes took full advantage of the team having a collective stinker; continually losing our way on turnovers, throwing daft passes and entirely forgetting how to run a squeeze defence. Widnes played with an intensity and speed we just couldnt cope with but its games like this one that will help us grow as a team. This game also saw Nathan begin to shine in his debut tournament, Nathan is great to coach and stuck to our patterns while some of the more experienced players (me included) lost their way a little.

Moment of the game – Sarah showing some proper gas chasing down one of the widnes lads, where did that come from!?! And Emily’s score stopping knee.

Sarah and Emily set up a score

North Wales Touch 5 – 10 Can’t Touch This (Scorers Matt, Aled, Jo, Tom)

This one was another guffing but didnt feel as bad as the Widnes defeat – We kept our shape and did well in attack but just got exposed by a all-male team with bags of gas well schooled by future Wales International (and North Wales own) Jon Dick. Our weakness on turnover ball was exposed again (some sessions on that coming up!) but it was a good performance.

Moment of the game – Toms Debut Score.

North Wales Touch 4 – 2 Warwick (Matt x3, Garry)

Warwick gave us a big of a hiding when we played them at the Manchester tournament in February, I think the score was 8 – 1, so for us to turn it around and grab a close victory was very pleasing. Warwick are a really nice group of players and I felt bad taking such enjoyment in our win over them. I scored our final Touchdown and proceeded to throw the ball in the air like we’d won the world cup, but i’d finally scored with a dive and couldnt help myself. To be honest it was good that so many of the team gave me a telling off for over-celebrating, though oddly enough it was one of the few occasions on the day that I wasnt fined.

Moment of the game – Telling Jo afterwards that we’d won as she once again raided our first aid box. (technically that was after the game)

Shell & Wxm Allstars 6 – 8 NWT (Matt x2, Alastair, Eileen, Sarah, Nathan)

This was probably the funnest game of the day as we took on a mix of players from Shell and some of our own players from Wrexham including the three amigos (or our “care in the community set”) Ed, Rich and Don. It was an end to end scorefest with neither team bothering to defend much but suddenly finding some extra energy when it came to attacking (funny that).

Moment of the game – Either Iain dropping an easy pass for a score or Eileen trying to work out where the scoreline was!

Things I learned

Too often the blokes on the team go hiding on the wrong wing leaving the girls to do all the running about on defense, its not cricket!

We go to sleep on turnovers

We attack pretty well

Don’t put Emily in charge of fines

Player of the tournament – Nathan

Vinnie from the Crusaders hands Nathan his Trophy

2011 Facts

We’ve played 8 games this year. Winning six and losing 2. (not bad considering we lost 18 on the bounce in 2009!)

Top Scorer is Matt with 11, joint second are Eileen and Aled with 3 each.

We’ve scored 40 and conceded 35.

Dennis Coffey - in Wrexham and Everything

Guest Coach Coup of the decade? I think so.

On Tuesday 7th June our guest coach was Dennis Coffey: Secretary General of The Federation of International Touch, the man who wrote the rules of our sport and the best coach I’ve known. He was pretty good.

The Teams line up for the anthems

Today we struck a blow against high fuel prices by beating Shell in the first of what we hope will be several matches against them over the summer. It was good fun, shell played really well for such a raw team and gave us a real scare in the first game going 2 – 0 up then tieing the scores late in the game at 3-3.

The scores and scorers in the games were

Shell Oil 3 – 4Wrexham Touch

Scorers: Matt, Aled, Dicky, Pam

Shell Oil 1 – 5 Wrexham Touch

Scorers: Rich (2), Andy, Gareth J, Pam

Shell Oil 1 – 3 Wrexham Touch

Scorers: Matt (2), Aled

Player of the Tournament – Emily. Mainly for her sterling defensive work as she made her wing a no score area. Mention in despatches to Clare who made her usual one mistake then played fantastically.

Good Stuff – The driving, especially the organisation into Mid, link, wing units. The communication; as we started talking our game improved dramatically. The commitment to trying our moves etc; we scored off the scoop and quickie several times and ran a few fades, it doesnt matter if they dont work yet, they are the way forward!

Special mentions to Gareth B who took being sold by me on Championship Manager in his stride to have a fine debut and Ed who actually made an assist for the first time and played really well at Link.

Hobbs playing what looks like Australia in the world cup in StellenBOSCH!

This Saturday (9th April) Wales Assistant Coach Kevin Hobbs will be taking a session for our mixed team, this is the first in what we hope will be several guest coaches over the summer; at the moment we have World Cup Winner and Secretary General of the F.I.T. Dennis Coffey confirmed for early June and are hoping to add more top coaching talent over the coming weeks. Not sure how, I think I may have pulled all my remaining strings with these two.

Do you want to test your coaching to its limit? Why not come book yourself in as one of our guest coaches for the evening/weekend? We’ll help out with expenses and, should you enjoy such things, show you the sites of Wrexham Town Centre as made famous on TV programmes such as “Booze Britain” and “Britains Hardest Pubs”. Contact matt at info@wrexhamtouch.co.uk to volunteer.

Anyway, here is a Q&A with Hobbs from earlier this year, this was originally done for the Carmarthenshire Touch Website and we post it without their kind permission.

Who are you?

Hobbs

Where are you from?  Where did you go to school?

Pontypridd (born and bred).

Where and when was your first experience of Touch?  How did you get into it?

A friend of mine I had previously played Union with got me involved.  I first started playing as a social player in a local league in Cardiff.
What was your initial impression?

It took me a while to appreciate the game.  I was a union player who got frustrated by the over-stepping and Touch-and-pass rules.  I played a few seasons on and off without committing until I had the opportunity to play at the World Cup in Japan in 2003.  Seeing the quality of the Australian and New Zealand players I realised what a quick and skillful game Touch is and fully committed to improving my own game after that.

Why did you decide to get involved in Touch refereeing?  Do you have a refereeing background from another sport?

My only previous refereeing experience was a game of Union about 20 years ago.  I played for a team in Bristol while at college and the ref didn’t turn up and I drew the short straw.  I started reffing Touch mainly due to frustration.  I was critical of some referees in the league I played so felt it was only fair to give it a go.  Once I reached a certain standard I realised the importance of good refereeing to the development of the game, so I attended all the courses necessary to get upgraded and this year have decided to stop playing to concentrate on refereeing and referee coaching.

What is your role with WTA?

I currently have dual roles within the WTA, I am on the Executive board as Financial Director and I am also the National Director of referees.  It is indicative of the developing stage the sport is at in the UK that certain people take on more than one role.  As the sport grows, this is likely to change (hopefully!)

In two sentences, what does WTA do?

The WTA promotes and administers the sport of Touch in Wales grass roots and juniors through to international and elite level.  This involves running coaching and referee courses,  delivering a range of touch activities direct, supporting league coordinators and running National teams.

What opportunities are there for someone that picks up the game?

One of the great things about Touch is that it is easy to find a level that suits your ability and commitment levels.  Opportunities vary from keeping fit, playing a social game with friends/work colleagues/family, to travelling to club tournaments in the UK , Europe and around the world .  The standard of the tournaments vary greatly so it is easy to find a suitable event.  Players also have the opportunity to excel and play international sport for Wales.  Wales are entering 7 teams into this year’s World Cup in Open and age restricted categories in male, female and mixed competitions .  The youngest players are 17, the oldest  is 60.  Referees also have an opportunity to travel to competitions around Europe, the higher the grading, the greater the opportunities.  As with all sports, officials are generally in short supply and most tournament organisers will contribute towards either travelling or accommodation costs.  There will be three referees from Wales officiating at the World Cup.

To give an indication of the opportunities, below is a list (from memory) of some of the places I have visited through Touch as a player and a referee in the last 10 years or so;

Japan, Christchurch New Zealand, Stellenbosch South Africa, Wrexham, NSW Australia, Paris, Marseille, Milan, Verona, Valencia, Frankfurt, Berlin, Jersey, plus numerous towns and cities within the UK.

Touch Referee Badge - yours will be blue

We are running a Level One referees course in Wrexham on the 10th April 2011. We need as many people as possible to attend as referees are vital to the future of the sport in North Wales. Even if you think you have no interest in refereeing its still worth attending as it will help your understanding of the rules of the game and make you a better player. You never know you might end up enjoying it! All are welcome, whether you currently referee another sport, are interested in taking up touch or any other reason you can think for attending!

The course will be ran by WTA Director of Refereeing Kevin Hobbs. Hobbs has refereed at the State Championships in New South Wales, has a much coveted level 4 badge and has been playing touch since 1847.

For the cost of just £12 you get an internationally recognized qualification, membership of the secret brethren of touch referees. A sumptuous badge resplendent in blue and most excitingly an ACME Thunderer…

The Acme Thunderer - Serious

Whats an ACME Thunderer?

I’m tempted to say it’s a whistle – but its not just any old whistle it’s a) the coolest named product in the history of humanity b) the loudest thing ever. It has so many uses beyond refereeing; frightening wild animals, keeping children in line, causing the total collapse of enemies inner ear and all sorts of other applications in real life*

For any enquiries about the course or to book your place contact our newly roped into it Referee Manager Gareth Hill by e-mail at Bujin1977@googlemail.com

* We don’t condone this stuff at Wrexham Touch we just wanted to make everyone aware of the power of the Thunderer.

The team on the day, sporting their new white and brown kit

Tournament: Manchester Invitational
Date: 19th February 2011
Results: 2 wins, 4 losses
Number of times I was Offside when there was no need to be: 63
Weather: Cold and Wet
State of Pitch: Bog
Occurences of Trenchfoot: Four
Hours soaking white kit: 567 (and counting)

We had four  tournament debuts on the day; Iain, who did play for us when we went to Cardiff to play against 3 international teams in 2009, but that wasn’t a tournament that was a massacre. Andy (Forrest Gump), Clare and Hyaing. The weather wasnt brilliant all day, I think it was a reminder of why we choose to play a summer sport and why we chose to train indoors over the winter!

Highlights of the day included Iains son Wills accidental moonwalk in the really slippy mud during the lads vs girls game. Andy’s Forrest gump impression during the Thames Valley Match. Jo’s collection of touchdown saving dives, leaps, clatterings and slides and me setting the UK allcomers record for saying “ball please” the most times in 30 seconds.

Wales Training

Those of us who were still standing (or had been winched out of bed) after saturday trained with the Wales Mixed Team at Wrexham Rugby Club on the Sunday. It was a touch masterclass from Wales Coaches Gareth Revell and Kevin Hobbs as they ran a session based around what we are trying to do in Wrexham and took time after to answer any questions we had. Cheers!

Not another 20m sprint!?!

After a couple of false starts due to brutal weather conditions Wrexham Touch Fitness Training begins this Wednesday 2nd February at Queensway, Wrexham. Starts about 7pm and will go on for an hour. All Welcome; whether you want to train for competitions, get fit for the summer or take up touch the hard way!

It will cost £3 for admission to the track itself, bring a big bottle of water and your running head/shoes.