Youngsters can be difficult to coach for many reasons, but one of the biggest challenges is that kids play differently than adults do. They make stuff up and aren't always interested in our linear approach to developing skills and learning how to play the game.

If you give kids 15 minutes with a ball and a hoop and some rope, pretty soon they'll have invented "hoop-string-ball", a cool new sport with a complex set of rules. They'll keep changing the rules as they go and they'll have a blast.

When we try to fit 6 year olds into lines of four to pass back and forth along the line we are restricting that sense of play and creativity. And later we wonder why it's so hard to find a natural decision-maker.

So how do we make use of this creative side of children while running a productive mini-rugby session?

Step one is to determine what we mean by "productive." What are the goals of the session? To build catching and passing skills, evasive running, teamwork? Settle on a goal and you'll soon find that there are many ways to turn it into a game that is both "productive" and FUN.

For example, if you want to teach young people to catch high balls, your methods might include lots of repetitions catching high balls. There are lots of ways for us to make that into games, but what if we delegate the game-making to the players?

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