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Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more

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Rugby rumble

Rucks and mauls and oval balls – it’s a group-led, round-robin rugby challenge!
Plan a session with this activity

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You’ll need

  • Tables
  • Chairs
  • Pens or pencils
  • Craft materials (for example, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, stickers)
  • Scrap paper, plain and coloured
  • Flipchart or whiteboard, with pen
  • Rugby-related items, including a ball, shirts, boots and anything else
Open plan
PDF – 93.0KB
Download Open plan

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant Hapus

St David is the patron saint of Wales and St David’s Day is celebrated on 1st March each year. This marks the anniversary of his death in 589AD.  

The day is traditionally celebrated by hosting parades, and eating traditional Welsh food, such as Welsh rarebit. People also wear the symbols of Wales and Saint David, daffodils, and leeks. St David himself was believed to have only eaten and drunk leeks and water, which is perhaps why the leek became a national symbol of Wales. 

St David was born in Caerfai in Pembrokeshire in South Wales in the year 500. According to legend, his mother, St Non, gave birth to him on a Pembrokeshire clifftop during a fierce storm. The spot is marked by the ruins of Non’s Chapel, and a nearby holy well is said to have healing powers.  

St David lived as a travelling monk, who established and restored twelve monasteries. He’s known for performing miracles. The most famous miracle associated with St David took place when he was preaching to a large crowd in Llanddewi Brefi.  When people at the back complained that they could not hear him, the ground on which he stood rose to form a hill. 

Rugby union and Wales’s national rugby team hold an important place in Welsh culture and society. In 1999, Cardiff hosted the Rugby World Cup in their national stadium, the Principality Stadium. This stadium is also home of the Wales national rugby union team. Wales and its people are known internationally for their rugby team’s talents and love of the sport.  

Before you begin

  • Two weeks before running this activity, ask around the group and find out who’d like to run a rugby union or rugby league-based activity as part of a session. See how much or how little each rugby enthusiast would be willing to do. It may be that there are a limited number of willing enthusiasts, so individuals might need to run more than one activity.
  • The chosen enthusiasts should think up, prepare and run between three and six activities at the same time in the session. They may use activities from those provided in these instructions. It’s their responsibility to make sure all activities are accessible, safe and suitable for the rest of the group, and that resources are prepared for each activity. They also need to make sure they cater for rugby lovers and those who aren’t so interested in the game. Fill in the activities on the ‘Open plan’ sheet.
  • One week before running this activity, the enthusiasts running activities should complete their plans and hand these to the person leading the activity. The person leading the activity should check the plans and ask questions about how they’ll manage risks and how they’ll keep everyone engaged.

Run the activity

  1. Several or all of the enthusiasts who’ve prepared activity bases for this session should introduce the activities to the rest of the group. They should also talk about why they’re rugby union or rugby league enthusiasts, what excites them about this sport of warriors and discuss their favourite rugby-related memory or experience.
  2. Depending on how many people are running bases, you might be able to have the rest of the group move between activity bases throughout the session. Alternatively, the person leading the activity or other volunteers could step in to run the bases with no enthusiasts. If there are more activities than there are people who can run bases, run the activities one after the other, or two at a time. Set up for all of, or the first, activities.
  3. Run the activities.

Here is a sample session plan that you could use:

You will need

  • A wooden spoon
  • Rules, regulations and expectations cards
  • Everyday recycled goods and old drinkware
  • Famous faces quiz sheet
  • Sheet
  1. Explain that this activity tests knowledge of either rugby union or rugby league’s many rules and regulations. Players should sit back-to-back in pairs, with one player A and the other B.
  2. Player A is given a pre-prepared card with a picture on it. The picture should show a rule, regulation or expectation (ie a player throwing a forward pass or tackling incorrectly).
  3. Without using any words related to rugby union or rugby league, Player A should describe what’s on the card to Player B. Player B should try to guess the rugby rule, regulation or expectation.
  4. Continue playing until two minutes have gone. Count how many Player B guessed correctly. The players should then swap places and play again, to see if the other person can guess more.
  1. Give out everyday recyclable items and old drinkware, with craft materials. Individuals or groups should use these to create rugby trophies from around the world, using what they know about the nation or the trophy itself to decorate their creation.
  2. Give each group the name of the trophy they should try to make. Some examples you could use are: ‘The European Rugby Champions Cup’ (made up of clubs from European rugby’s ‘Six Nations’), ‘The Calcutta Cup’ (presented to the winner of the annual match between England and Scotland), ‘The Giuseppe Garibaldi Trophy’ (presented to the winner of the annual match between France and Italy) and ‘The Webb Ellis Cup’ (awarded to the winner of the Rugby World Cup).
  3. When the trophies are complete, each player should try and guess which trophy the others have made. Trophy-makers may point out features they’ve added, but shouldn’t say the name or the location of their trophy until it’s correctly guessed.
  1. Either run this activity outside or clear space inside, as this game needs lots of room. Mark four corners (ie of a large room) as the four home nations – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
  2. Everyone should start in the centre of the playing area. The enthusiast running the activity should call out the name of a well-known, home nations-based rugby union or rugby league club. Players have 10 seconds to run to the corner featuring the home nation of that club (eg for ‘Saracens!’ players should run to ‘England’).
  3. Players who choose incorrectly are out. Keep shouting names until there’s one person left – the winner. Make things harder by calling the names of individual players or cup/league competitions.
  1. Players should get into small teams. Give each team a pre-prepared ‘Famous faces quiz sheet’ and pens or pencils.
  2. Each team should try to guess all the famous sports personalities from their faces. They may be union or league players, legends of either game, pundits or famous coaches.
  3. See who got the most answers correct. That team is the winner.
  1. Lay out some rugby-related items. This could include rugby strips, boots, balls or other paraphernalia. There should be no more than 15 items.
  2. Allow everyone to look at the items for about 30 seconds, then cover them with a sheet.
  3. Everyone should make a list of the items they remember. See who correctly remembers the most items. That person is the winner.

Reflection

For some, this activity might’ve been right up their street, though they may still have stepped out of their comfort zone! Rugby fans needed to think carefully about the activities they chose, prepared and ran, so that everyone could play their part, whatever their level of rugby knowledge. Were group-led activities a success, and would you like to see more group-led sessions in future?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Active games

The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.

Contact games and activities

Make sure everyone understands what contact is acceptable, and monitor contact throughout the activity.

Scissors

Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using scissors. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.

Glue and solvents

Always supervise young people appropriately when they’re using glue and solvent products. Make sure there’s plenty of ventilation. Be aware of any medical conditions that could be affected by glue or solvent use and make adjustments as needed.

Rubbish and recycling

All items should be clean and suitable for this activity.

To add a competitive element, run this session with a rugby-style league table. Groups could give themselves a team name and add their points from each activity to a scoreboard. The team that gets the most points across all the activities is the overall winner, and the team that gets the least receives the wooden spoon! To make the teams fair, try to spread out those with more rugby knowledge among the different teams.

Make sure all written text is easy to read.

Remember to represent wheelchair rugby in the ‘Famous faces quiz sheet’.

Depending on where your group is based, either rugby union or rugby league is likely to be more popular. Bear in mind that few people will know everything about both ‘codes’ and it may be best to focus on whichever one the group prefers.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Scouts Sports Enthusiast Activity Badge

If this was a success, continue to plan group-led activity sessions, with other themes like skills, music or the arts.

Young people who are into rugby union or rugby league should take this opportunity to run activities, share their knowledge with others and express how rugby makes them feel.