1 │ U14s – the foundation of the Serbian rugby development

For us, the U14s are the most important selection from which we must start mass production of players and clubs that would work with a clear goal. We believe that with good planning, but also with implementation, year after year, we would be able to get quality young players from the younger categories to the senior teams.

Current situation of U14s in Serbia

andCurrently, 6 clubs are actively participating in the competition. At the last tournament of the Serbian Championship, which took place on November 2, everyone took part. However, the numerical situation was quite shaky. RAS Smederevo, which was formed and financed by the Union as an official academy, performed with 5 players, Dorćol with 7 with two older girls, Borac and Dinamo with 7 players. Torpedo Mlava had 11 players, while Rad had 13 players. Which means that a total of 50 players took part in the tournament. And rugby in the U14s competition is played with 10 players. We believe that there are more players in the clubs who could not perform for various reasons. However, the correct number is 50 players. When we subtract the older players who played, as well as the U12s who have the right to play for the U14s, we get a number that is below 40. As a reminder, as of September 1, U14s are players who were born in 2010 and 2011 with the fact that players born in 2012 have the right to play with a special permit.

With official appearances, all clubs achieve placements in competitions under the auspices of the Rugby Union of Serbia, and receive funding from the Rugby Union of Belgrade and the Rugby Union of Vojvodina, as well as from the Union. Also, with their performances, they gain the right to vote at the RSS Assembly. If there are no children and if they are doing poorly, the question arises as to how the funds are spent and how the political importance of the clubs is distributed. All that is fine if there are children, but there are no children. And that is the only thing that matters.

Photo: Vanja Bejin

At the moment, no official plans have been announced for school rugby or for the Winter League, so we don’t know how everything will look. Although the dates and venues of the Winter Leagues are always organized ad hoc, the exact dates and venues are rarely known in advance.

Bad experiences and poor organization of previous school rugby projects

We had a lot of discussions with all actors of Serbian rugby regarding school rugby and how to create a good system. Several attempts have been made to start with U12s and U14s and rarely have success been achieved in keeping a large number of children in several locations. Various rugby players had their own reasons, some think that today’s kids don’t want to play rugby. Some say that children don’t have the attention span they used to have, and that’s why they give up on sports. Some even say that parents do not want to let their children play sports because of the mass murders in Ribnikar school. Some even say that the whole region is in a bad situation in youth rugby. So far, no one has said that the real reason is a very poor organization, poor quality training process, very poor implementation of the project and lack of planning. And that is our reality, whether we like it or not. That’s why there are no more children in our country in rugby.

Here we will give a graphic example. In fact, several illustrative examples. Every time there is a school recruitment project, our best presenter Aleksandar Nedeljković is hired, who has gathered over 30 children per location in a certain age category in 7 or 8 locations across Serbia. None of those locations managed to keep kids in the club on a large scale. That’s why we don’t have rugby teams.

A quality long-term plan or a clear goal was never made

The long-term plan foresees planning for a longer period of time. Let’s say if we want to work with the U14s this year, we make a prediction of how the competition will look like in two or three years. We never had a goal of what we wanted to do, but that goal should be clear and not abstract or unrealistic.

There was no good preparation for school rugby

Now you are wondering, what is the preparation now. “Čobi” goes to school, shows some kids rugby, those kids come to practice rugby. And that’s it. What are you writing to us about some preparations? And then when they quit rugby, we blame higher forces like cavemens.

Photo: Vanja Bejin

It is very important that you prepare well to welcome new members to your club. Not only the players come to the club, but also their parents, friends and even family. We will talk more about the preparation itself and how it should be done in the further part of the text. By preparation, we also mean club capacities, staffing, coaches and sports workers. But also to the seminars that the Union is obliged to organize in order for the project to succeed.

The work and monitoring of the coach's work

We never had a long-term plan on how we wanted to educate children through rugby. What rugby elements do we want to pay attention to periodically. What U14s need to learn everything. We never had coaching tools or workshops that would help the coaches themselves to hold training sessions. Also, the monitoring of coaches and their work was not at a high level. No attention is paid to the quality of training, which is a big problem.

Bad organization of Winter Leagues indors

The balloons where rugby is played are very small, you can hardly build one field, and then the tournaments last endlessly. They also tried separating the clubs by tournaments, which did not give too many results with losing mass participation effect.

After the Winter League, the clubs are left to their own

When the Winter League ends, clubs have a huge task to switch from less contact rugby to tackles. In those cases, they are left to fend for themselves because no one from the Union deals with the problem. Then various difficulties arise, first of all we think of children giving up, when they find themselves on the field with players of the same age who have been training rugby for a long time.

Photo: Vanja Bejin

Bad competition management

The competition is neglected, monotonous, boring. Tournaments are played, not matches. It is played on a very shortened field, so rugby turns into genocide if there are teams that are good at knocking down, or it turns into high-scoring rugby.

After spring, it's all over again

After the spring we are again at the beginning of the new school rugby. Since we never had a long-term plan, now we start planning from the beginning!

How to make a good plan for U14s?

We need to determine the goal first. Both short-term and long-term. Then we need to make a good plan of what these generations will look like during the next 3-4 years. What we expect from them, as well as what we offer them. Why they should coach rugby. That is perhaps the main question.

Photo: Tijana Vesović

If we want to play rugby 15-a-side in the U16s competition in the 2025/2026 season and in the U18s competition in the 2026/2027 season, we must now start planning such competitions. This will further affect the quality of the players coming from the younger categories to the senior team. Before any plan, it is necessary to do a good research of the current situation as well as how much money would be invested in such a project. What needs to be worked on, and what we must do in order to be successful.

Goal - short term - season 2024/2025

The goal is to create two qualitative leagues with U14s. In the first league, rugby 15-a-side would be played over the entire field with all the rules. Teams that would play in the first league would have 25-30 players who were born in 2010 and 2011 . They would have a coach and an assistant coach. They would have a team of managers. They would play a minimum of 6-7 games in the half-season. At the end of the competition, they would play the grand final.

In the second league, rugby 12 would be played according to the tournament system. The teams that would play in these tournaments would have between 15-20 players in 2010 and 2011 It would be played over the entire field, which would be shortened. All rules would apply. The teams would have a coach and a head coach. At the end of the competition, the final weekend would be played, where all the matches would be played.

Rugby 7 Serbian Championship. In the rugby 7 season, all teams would play one big tournament that would bring together all the clubs that would compete in rugby 7.

Photo: Andrej Kranjc

Belgrade Championship. Every year, the Rugby Union of Belgrade receives funds for competitions. And then simply those funds are used to play a tournament that would be played anyway. That’s why you have cup awards at mid-season tournaments. We would use those funds specifically, that is, we would create an international tournament where the two first-placed teams from Serbia playing in the First League would participate, then we would invite the two first-placed teams from Croatia, the first-placed team from Hungary and the team from Bosnia and Herzegovina. They would make a tournament lasting two days, where there would be a total of 6 teams, which were divided into three groups. Each team would get 3 very good matches during the weekend.

Vojvodina Championship. The same thing, they would just focus on the B group, where our three first-placed teams from the B group would perform, then they would invite a team from Montenegro, a team from Slovenia, a team from Bulgaria or a team from Croatia, where 6 teams would perform, which would won 3 very high-quality games each.

Short term goal – referees

Currently, in the competition of U14s, officiating is distributed by reffs who are over 40 years old. Worst of all, we don’t have more than 4-5 reffs in total. And that’s because there aren’t too many games and because luck invest in young reffs. We would look at hiring young referees for all U14s competitions. On paper, we have several very high-quality young reffs with great prospects. Here, above all, we think of Mihailo Marjanović, Relja Bulajić and Marija Stošić. Of course, there are others on the list who have completed the courses or have the desire to officiate the game.

Photo: Tijana Vesović

Young people, according to us U16s and older, should be motivated to apply and to officiate games. But it is not enough to just apply. We currently have a referee’ organization that doesn’t even exist, that doesn’t deal with anything, let alone take care of the development of reffs. The trial is reduced to a day in physics. You come, officiate and that’s it. Do it. No progress, no one following you. It must be fundamentally changed.

Short-term goal - assistant referees

We have big problems, because we don’t have assistant referees. And we don’t have them because it is expensive for the Union and the clubs to pay for them. So our financial situation affects the quality of officiating. HERE we suggest that each club in the first league take one assistant referee to the match, that is, in the B league to the tournament. It can be a parent, an active player or a club member. In the first league, they would get a reff who would be delegated by the Referees’ Organization, and assistant reffs from both clubs. In the second league, they would receive referees delegated by the Referee Organization and assistant referees from all the clubs participating in the competition.

Short-term goal match commissioners

Each game has its own match commissioner. At all matches and tournaments, the match commissioner is an official who performs the work for a fee. We currently have 4-5 match commissioner in Serbia. Hardly any of them are delegates to this minimum number of tournaments and matches twice a month. And it is expensive for the Union, which covers the costs of competitions in younger categories. So then they influences the Commissioner for the competition to be a delegate to 40-50% of the tournaments in the season in order to save money there.

Photo: Andrej Kranjc

Short-term goal - preparation of the "field" for the entire project

Preparation is the most important part of the plan. If you do not prepare and lay a good foundation, you risk that your project will fail. Just like almost all the projects in our rugby were. First of all, we have to scan the current state of the clubs, namely the playing staff, the coaching staff, as well as the infrastructure.

We decided to do it according to the participating clubs that have the potential to participate in the project. Currently, 6 clubs are participating in the competition. With the fact that, according to us, there are a total of 12 clubs with the potential to participate in this project.

Now imagine the calculation that 4 clubs with 25 players each play in the First League. And that in the second league there are 6 clubs with 15 players each. Here we get that almost 200 players born in 2010 and 2011 will play rugby. Which is surreal from the standpoint of current situation.

In order to achieve that, we have to be very precise and realistic in screening the situation by clubs. And that’s what we’re going to do now.

RK Rad – Beograde

Belgrade boys are in the best situation and definitely the first candidate for the first league. They currently have around 15 players in the U14s age group. If additional promotions were made, they would reach the figure of 25-30 players without too much trouble. Currently, they also have young coaches who work with the boys under the supervision of the head coach. A total of 3 coaches involved in the work.

RK Rad has a field where they train under floodlights. The field is ideal for playing rugby in the U14s competition across the entire field as well as for holding tournaments. It is necessary to renovate training equipment, balls, cones, pads. The club has goalposts and goalpost coverings for organizing matches.

Marketing potential. The club no longer has an active website, but it has social networks with a large number of followers. It is necessary to maximally activate work on them, with the daily release of rugby content. When the matches and the tournament are played, it is necessary to announce the event, as well as to release the results in a timely manner.

Proximity to schools and potential number of children. There are many schools around Banjica where Rad has access. And there is a lot of potential to recruit a lot of players.

What is needed to upgrade with the U14s team:

*It is necessary to hire another coach

*One parent is required to be involved as a team manager of the U14 team

*Moderator on social networks

RK Dinamo 1954 – Pančevo

Unlike some other age categories, boys from Pančevo cannot really celebrate with the number of players in the U14s competition. There are about 10 of them. Nevertheless, Dinamo is one of the clubs with the greatest potential in Serbia. We would have a lot of work to get to the ideal 25-30 players. Definitely a club that could play in the first division. Currently, 2 coaches are involved in the work with the U14s.

RK Dinamo 1954 has a field with floodlights on which it trains and which it uses for playing matches. The field is large with the necessary dimensions for playing senior rugby. Although he almost bought new balls, it is necessary to pay attention to the other props for training. The club has goalposts and goalpost coverings for playing matches.

Marketing potential. The club does not have its own website. But he has social networks that he doesn’t use as much as he should. There is rugby content, but we need to record it and put it on the air.

Proximity to schools and potential number of children: There are a number of schools that are very close and a large number of children. At every presentation, the club is solidly filled with new guys. In many schools, Dinamo has access and it should be used.

What is needed to upgrade with the U14s team:

*It is necessary to hire two more coaches

*One parent is required to be involved as a team manager of the U14 team

*Moderator on social networks

Photo: Tijana Vesović

RK Torpedo Mlava – Potrevac na Mlava

Boys from Petrovac have a lot of U14s, with RK Rad being the only one that had a sufficient number of players at the last tournament. Given that Petrovac is not a large city with several schools, the question is how much the current playing staff can be increased. That’s why, for us, Torpedo is a team that should compete in the second league. Currently, the club has 3 coaches who participate in the training process.

Torpedo has a field where it trains and where it can play matches or tournaments. It is necessary to invest a lot in the renovation of equipment and props. The club has goalposts and covers for goalposts.

Marketing potential: Torpedo is the only club that makes posters and regularly announces the performances of its U14s, which is commendable. However, more rugby content is needed. Both from training and from matches.

Proximity to schools and potential number of children. Schools are close because it is a small town. There are also a lot of rural schools that are a few days away from the city. However, there are not too many children. If the figure of 15-20 players is reached, it would be fantastic for the club and rugby in general.

What is needed to upgrade with the U14s team:

*It is necessary to hire another coach

*One parent is required to be involved as a team manager of the U14 team

*Moderator on social networks

RK Borac Starčevo – Starčevo

The only club located in the village, and a club that has a great continuity of performances in the younger categories. However, there are no more than 6-7 players in the current lineup. According to us, they are a club that should compete in the B League. There are currently 2 coaches working with the players.

Borac has his own field, which should soon receive spotlights. However, one must invest in equipment and props. First of all, we are thinking about jerseys. The club has fixed posts and covers. Senior rugby can be played on the field.

Marketing potential. Recently, Borac has started releasing a lot of rugby content. A page promoting women’s rugby has also been activated. However, the activity should be increased and the competitions should be followed as well as possible.

Proximity to schools and potential number of children. Starčevo has one school and Borac does not have access to it. It sounds incredible, but it’s true. However, Omoljica is also close, and Vojlovica, which is part of Pancevo, is also close. If everything is planned well, Borac players can reach 15-20 players very easily.

What is needed to upgrade with the U14s team:

*It is necessary to hire two coaches, one of them young

*One parent is required to be involved as a team manager of the U14 team

*Moderator on social networks

RK Dorćol 1998 – Belgrade

Dorćol have small problems with the number of U14s, where there are no more than 10 of them on the list. According to us, they are a club that should compete in the B league. There are currently 3 coaches working with the U14s.

Dorćol has received appointments for training on the field FK Polet, at least that is the information we have. Which is a good thing because they had previously trained in the meadow next to the quay. Since the visitors are on the field, they do not have goalposts and goalpost covers. They have great new jerseys, more money needs to be invested in props.

Marketing potential. The potential they have is not being used at all. A good social media moderator could do a great job. They have a lot of quality content that needs to be released online and would be interesting to follow

Proximity to schools and potential number of children. Although they are in the very center of the city, there are not too many schools nearby. Maybe they should consider opening a branch a bit further away, to attract a lot more players. However, we believe that it is quite realistic that with quality presentations and work in schools, they will reach the figure of 15-20 U14s.

What is needed to upgrade with the U14s team:

*One parent is required to be involved as a team manager of the U14 team

*Moderator on social networks

RAS Smederevo

Rugby Academy Smederevo is a project of the Rugby Union of Serbia to activate the club in Smederevo. The project is financed by the Union, which sends aid in the form of transportation costs and coaching staff. The number of U14s is somewhere around 10. At the last tournament there were 5 of them. Given that the functioning of the RAS directly depends on the Union, the question is how sustainable it will be in the future. We sincerely hope that one of the parents or former rugby workers from Smederevo will adopt a club that could function independently. The club as such could play in second league.

Clubs that do not have U14s selections, but which could successfully create a U14s team

  1. BRK Crvena Zvezda – has infrastructure and coaching staff that could very easily create a U14s team. The name Red Star alone can attract a lot of kids to the club and to rugby.
  2. RK Partizan – the name alone could restore its former glory. If a good infrastructure is provided, they could reach a large number of players very quickly.
  3. RK Kruševac – Kruševac have a couple of U14s players, and they could very easily make a good team. They have coaches, they have a field where they train.
  4. RK Žarkovo – a team that has already had several successful presentations. They have a training ground within SC Partizan in Žarkovo. However, in order to form a team, a young coach is needed.
  5. Rugby Academy in Belgrade. The Union should take advantage of the fact that there are areas in Belgrade where rugby is not played. Academies with the potential to grow into clubs can be formed there. It could very easily be one or two locations.
  6. Forming a new or reactivating an old club – you never know what can happen and who can form a club or reactivate an old one.
Photo: Andrej Kranjc

Training of coaches and reffs before the start of the project

Two to three trainings and workshops with coaches and referees are necessary. As part of this education, you must complete the Level 1 or even Level 2 course of the World Rugby Federation. It is necessary to form the Coaching Organization again, which would deal with the development of coaches. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the coaches have the status of operational coahes. Work with the Union to benefit two or three coaches per year or to create a platform so that more coaches can be educated.

In addition to education, it is also necessary to create a tool that would help coaches to do their job. We are absolutely sure that most coaches do not work properly with children, starting with the basic elements of the game. And that’s why we propose to create a video platform and record the exercises with an accent on the key factors that are needed to perform the exercise in the correct way. It can be recorded and placed on one of the YouTube channels.

In addition, it is necessary to hold a meeting with all coaches once every two weeks. It can be an online meeting where they would share experiences and where they would get to know each other about progress in training.

Also, coaches should be observed during training sessions. The person in charge of the development should visit the training sessions of the clubs and make sure what is done in the training sessions, what the training looks like. There you can determine what needs to be changed in order to make the trainings better and of higher quality.

What should we expect from the U14s?

During the period of 6-7 months, what we have to focus on.

How to correctly pass the ball – to thank the ball with the hands away from the body when the player is in full run, even practice catching the ball earlier.

How to tackle correctly – first and foremost how to take down a player safely and correctly. Not paying attention to whether the tackle was effective or dominant. In the younger categories, approximately 33% of players actually tackle, 33% of players want to tackle but fail and 33% of players do not tackle.

How to use space, go forward – Teach players to use the space they have. Force the progression towards the area, but not in the sense that one player runs from one end of the field to the other, but to do it in the best possible way. Passing and supporting correctly.

How to position in attack – how to position in attack. Game without the ball.

How to position in defense – even if you are not a good tackler, or you are not good in the ruck game, you can contribute to a good defense with good positioning.

Ball Presentation – Ball presentation is the key to safe and fast ruck.

Securing the ball in the ruck – correct positioning in the ruck, body position. When does ruck start and when does it end?

Offside and Rules in ruck – Offside Lines. When the ball is in the ruck and when it is not.

Specifics for each rugby position – Players should already be learning the specifics of each position on the field. It is necessary to profile them and determine their positions.

Correct placement in the scrum – correct placement in the scrum of the first and second line, position of legs, back, hands, correct binding, collective pushing.

Lineout – Teach lifters how to lift correctly, jumpers how to jump correctly and hookers how to throw.

Support – Insist on fast and quality support.

Imagine if we had all these items explained in writing and recorded videos in the form of tutorials. Then both coaches and players would know how to do the exercises correctly and would have somewhere to look. It would be a fantastic coaching tool. And we advocate for it to be public, so that everyone can look and learn the basics.

Photo: Vanja Bejin

School Rugby and Winter League

When we have a well-done preparation and when the clubs have managed to respond to the requirements stated in the preparation itself, the realization of school rugby starts. The federation and the clubs agree on the dates of the presentations as well as the instructor who will do the promotion.

At the same time, it is necessary to know the shedule of the Winter Leagues. It would be good if the tournaments were as massive as possible, but there are no large complexes with indoor courts in Serbia. So it wouldn’t be bad to play in some halls where two or even three courts can be built. In the balloons where the clubs train, only one field can be made and if you want to make a tournament, it lasts indefinitely.

Even this winter, the temperature is expected to be much milder, and you can always organize a few tournaments outside, why not. Let’s take the example of the tournament being organized at the Kralj Petar Prvi stadium, where it can be played on a rugby field and on a field with artificial grass. A well-attended event can be created where everyone will play in one place.

It is very important to make a plan for holding the Winter Leagues. According to us, it is necessary to hold 4 or 5 tournaments so that new rugby players have the opportunity to play rugby as much as possible. The Winter League tournaments are played with limited contact.

End of the Winter League and preparations for the competition

It is necessary to prepare well for the upcoming competition after successful presentations. The worst thing you can do is to make a meeting on, say, March 1st and say what and who has what and how much so we can see where we are. You need to already have a complex competition on February 1st, as well as a plan to prepare for the start.

If we consider that all planned presentations were successful, we can plan two levels of competition.

Two or three teams would compete in the first level of the competition. In total, they would have 6 games in the half-season + the final match within the final weekend. Rugby 15 would be played over the entire field.

In the second level of the competition, rugby tournaments would be played in version 12-a-side rugby. 4 tournaments would be played, along with the final weekend, where instead of tournaments, matches would be played.

A 7s rugby tournament would also be organized in the spring part of the competition.

In the spring part of the competition, they would also organize the Belgrade Championship, where they would also invite international teams. As we mentioned before, it would be a two-day tournament. The same goes for the Vojvodina Championship, as we have already mentioned.

The end of the spring season in 2025 and the beginning of competition preparations in the fall

We already know that in the fall the age groups change in all categories, and based on the number of players, we can perform preliminary preparation for the competition. Force the teams to start summer preparations for the new season with the teams., with the aim of playing rugby 15 in the U16s.

Marketing, promotion and rugby content

If we are doing well, we must trumpet and promote our work. We need to be visible and promote our brand. In order to do that, we have to cover the competition well, from all levels. Both from the level of the Union, and from the level of clubs and independent media. Considering that we will cover it in one of the following articles, now we would list only a few things that would concern the U14s.

*Photography of matches and tournaments

*Recording of matches

*Activity on social networks

*Activity on websites

*Writing rugby content related to U14s

*Recording of a podcast that would follow the competition, among others and U14s

Photo: Vanja Bejin

Long-term goals - autumn 2025 - autumn 2026

Here it is necessary to plan what our goals are for a year in advance. What do we want from the cadet competition, how far have the clubs progressed, whether to create two levels of competition. If we focused on doing school rugby with the players born in 2010 and 2011, they will have the right to perform for the U16s together with the players born in 2009.

You have to be very wise and plan well how and what to do. Because time flies, and in rugby if you’re not ready, you haven’t done anything.

Women's rugby

Every time we do presentations for boys, a lot of girls come to rugby. Given that in U16s, girls are not allowed to play together with boys. It is necessary to make a good plan if there are a lot of girls, to start with women’s rugby on a larger scale. The problem is that there are no capacities in clubs to work with girls. This should also be taken into account when making a good plan.

Conclusion

If we have a plan and if we studiously approach the production, there is a high probability that it will not only be successful, but will also exceed expectations. All we want is for lots of kids to play rugby in lots of clubs. This is our absolute goal and the path to the recovery of rugby in Serbia. The rest of us have to make sure everything works, every aspect.

This is not a detailed plan, but only a concept that can be elaborated. There are tons of details that could be further worked out that would definitely upgrade this plan.

But if through that action we get to the point where 200 young people play rugby in the U14s competition and there is a long-term plan for them. We are on the right track.

There is only one important thing, and that is that we are very late to do quality school rugby this year. All plans should have been made already in September, good preparation, trainings and courses should have been made during October, and implementation should have started already in the middle or end of November. A very bad strategy that will cost Serbian rugby another year, and we are already on a serious downhill.