tlmNexus sponsors Yeovil Rugby Club age grade teams

tlmNexus’ Customer Integration Engineer – Team Leader, Mark Chesterton shares his thoughts on tlmNexus’ sponsorship of Yeovil Rugby Club’s age grade teams:

“Yeovil Rugby Club provides an all-inclusive environment for people to enjoy playing and spectating alike, from the Men’s and Women’s teams, through a very active mixed ability team and down to our age grade teams. Yeovil was the starting point for current Red Roses Captain Marlie Packer, who regularly returns to meet our players.

Our age grade players start at 6 years old and play through to 18 when they move into the adult game. My role is to coach the current under 9s team. 

Having played in my RAF days, I came back to the game as a coach 4 years ago. I am learning alongside the players as the rules have changed a lot since my playing days. The rules for age grade players change each year, they add more elements of the game each time, which challenges the coaches as much as the players.

The core players have been with me from starting at U6 and I will stay with them as they progress each year. For the 23/24 season we have around 20 players with several new starters this season, which is a challenge as they begin contact rugby this year, tackling instead of tag rugby.

Being a coach is very rewarding, I have a great bunch of players who bring a lot of enthusiasm and energy to the pitch during training and matches. Most importantly we all have plenty of laughs; the coaches, players and parents/spectators all have a really fun time. We even do a parents v kids game at the end of the season. Watching our players grow in confidence and gain game skills is where we get our enthusiasm to get up on a wet and windy Sunday morning in the middle of the winter.

We are very fortunate that tlmNexus has become one of our age grade sponsors with the company logo on the front of our match shirts. I can’t tell you how proud my players are when they put on a match shirt and take to the field. They all stand a little bit taller, run a little bit faster and are a little bit braver when they are there as a team in their match kit and without our generous sponsors that wouldn’t be the case.”

Text by Mark Chesterton

Photos courtesy of Rugby World and Mark Chesterton