If your child plays Under 6, Under 7 or Under 8 rugby league this season, the game they turn up to will look different from the one their older brother or sister played. Contact has gone. Tag has replaced it.
A lot of parents have asked me what this actually means, whether it is permanent, and whether their child is missing out. Here is a straight answer to all three.
What has actually changed
The Rugby Football League has replaced contact with tag rugby at the youngest age groups. It has come in gradually rather than all at once. Under 6s went first, then Under 7s, and this season Under 8s have joined them.
The change came out of the RFL's Brain Health and Clinical Advisory Group, working alongside research from Leeds Beckett University into how much contact young players are actually exposed to. The same body of work is behind the reduction in legal tackle height across the senior game.
The children in the current Under 8 group will move into contact rugby when they reach Under 9s. So it is a delay, not a removal.
The short version
- Under 6, Under 7 and Under 8 now play tag rugby league
- Contact begins at Under 9
- Age groups still run from Under 7 through to Under 18
- Under 7 to Under 11 remain mixed gender
Your club will have the specifics for your region — festival formats vary from area to area.
Is my child missing out?
This is the question I get most, usually from a dad who played himself and remembers tackling at six.
The honest answer is no, and I say that as someone who spent a career being tackled for a living.
Here is what happens in a contact session with seven year olds. Half the children are worried about the tackling. Some of them spend the session avoiding the ball because having the ball means getting hit. The bigger, more physically developed lads dominate, not because they are better players but because they got taller earlier. And the coach spends most of the hour managing safety rather than teaching anyone anything.
Now watch a tag session with the same children. Everybody wants the ball. The small quick lad is suddenly the most dangerous player on the pitch. Nobody is hiding. The coach is coaching.
What tag actually teaches
Tag is not a watered down version of rugby. It is a concentrated version of the parts that matter most at that age:
- Evasion. When you cannot run through someone you have to run around them. Tag forces footwork, sidestep and change of pace in a way contact never does.
- Passing under pressure. With a defender closing, the ball has to go early and accurately. That habit sticks.
- Seeing space. The single most valuable thing a rugby player can learn, and the hardest to teach later.
- Support play. A tagged player has to play the ball, so the runners behind have to be there.
Every one of those transfers directly into contact rugby at Under 9. In my experience the children who spend two or three years in tag arrive at contact with better hands and better feet than the ones who went straight in.
Ken's verdict
I played professionally through the 1980s, when nobody thought twice about any of this. I would not swap that career for anything, and I am still glad the game has changed.
The best players I ever came up against were not the ones who hit hardest at seven. They were the ones who could beat you without touching you. Tag builds exactly that.
What this means if you coach
If you are running a tag side, a few things I would pass on.
Do not coach it as tackling practice without the tackle
The most common mistake I see is coaches running contact drills with tags bolted on. Tag has its own skills. Ripping a tag cleanly, protecting your tags when you carry, working the two-on-one — coach those on their own terms.
Play more, drill less
At this age the game teaches better than any drill. Small sided, plenty of touches, short bursts. If you find yourself talking for more than about ninety seconds, you have lost them.
Get the transition right at Under 9
When contact does come, build it properly. Body position and safe technique before anything else, and never rush a child who is not ready. A player frightened of contact at nine can be lost to the game entirely by eleven.
Free session plans for tag and contact
Session plans with pitch diagrams, coaching cues and game transfer notes on every drill — free to download.
Get the free plansCommon questions
Will my child ever learn to tackle?
Yes. Contact begins at Under 9 and is taught properly, with technique coached from the ground up rather than assumed.
What kit does a tag player need?
Very little. Boots, a gumshield if your club asks for one, and warm layers. The club supplies the tag belts. There is no need for a scrum cap or shoulder padding in tag. See the Boot Room for junior boot recommendations.
Is rugby union doing the same?
Union has run mini tag at the youngest age grades for years, so it has arrived at a similar place by a different route. The RFU's Age Grade Rugby covers ages six to eighteen, with informal activity below that.
Does this apply outside England?
These particular rules are the RFL's, so they apply in England. Australia, New Zealand and other nations run their own frameworks — the NRL has used tag formats at introductory level for a long time. Check with your national body.
Where I would leave it
Every generation of rugby people has been convinced the game was going soft. Mine said it about the outlawing of the stiff arm. The generation before said it about scrum laws.
The game is still there. It is still hard. It still builds the sort of people it always did. What has changed is that a seven year old now spends the hour running with a ball in their hands rather than worrying about what happens when someone bigger arrives.
If that keeps more of them playing at fourteen, it is worth it. Keeping children in the game is the whole job.