It is only social this week with the Autumn League back on next week. For those of you who don’t have to work or can get a few hours off over lunch, come on down to the SRFC for some touch action. 12pm - 2pm as usual.

World Cup Rugby action in the weekend. (add 6 hrs to get Shanghai Time)

Sat 29th Sep
New Zealand vs Romania 13:00
Australia vs Canada 15:00
Wales vs Fiji 17:00
Scotland vs Italy 21:00

Sun 30th Sep
France vs Georgia 15:00
Ireland vs Argentina 17:00
South Africa vs USA 20:00

The CocaCola Shanghai International Cricket 6’s will start tomorrow and run until Sunday evening. There will be big names at the SRFC. Legends such as Alan Lamb, Chris Lewis, Dean Jones, Phil Symonds and Colin Miller will be at the ground.

Because of this, Touch will recommence next Saturday.

Have you ever had one of those days where you get the case of the dropsies and everything you do just doesn’t work out? The harder you try the worst it gets? Never mind in Touch, it could be in any sport. When it is not your day, it’s just not your day.

This is why the fundamentals are so important. It is in these situations where you have to get back to the fundamentals and hope the basics pull you through. Basics such as keep your eye on the ball, not only avoid 50/50 passes but avoid 20/80 passes. Slow down the play to give you more time to think and finally apply the KISS principal. Keep It Stupidly Simple.

This way you live to fight another day.

With Jones Lang Lasalle defending their rugby 7s title in Shanghai the previous week against the Lemurs, it was back to good old touch footy this week. It is amazing what a week off can do with a lot of guys feeling a bit rusty. Lots of wayward passes and handling errors that that everyone was guilty of.

The rugby world cup is into its second week as well with most games just going through their paces. Crunch time will come in the knock out stages in a few weeks time.

How many times have you been waiting in the back line only to tell yourself, if they spin in wide, we’d be in. Or we have an overlap on the blind side so go left!

This is what separates the cows from the sheep and the men from the mice. Rugby players enjoy spinning the ball wide as they understand that this is where the space lies. Touch players like to drive it up straight, which is great, but when it comes to spinning out wide, they sometimes lack the creative flair you see in rugby. This is understandable as touch stems from rugby league where if you do spin it wide, you just continue hitting it straight up.

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