PARENTS and coaches need to allow their children to experiment in youth sport more in order for them to fully develop their skills.

This is the opinion of Hexham resident John Fletcher, who knows his stuff as the former player with Northampton, Newcastle Gosforth and Tynedale is now employed as national development academy manager for England Rugby.

Working with professional academies across the country, Fletcher identifies talented youngsters between the ages of 15 and 19 and selects them for the nation’s youth squads.

With a wealth of respect and experience in the game, he is well placed to pass on his opinions about youth sport, especially as a father of three young boys who all play a variety of sport within the Tyne Valley.

All too often, he has witnessed bad practises in sport, which he attributes to a lack of knowledge from adults about how young people develop their skills.

He said: “I’m sure everybody thinks the most important outcome is to keep children in sport, but that is not the case because there is a lack of understanding about how to make that happen.

“We pigeonhole children far too young, and there are teams in this area who pick players on their ability from seven-years-old.

“What people don’t understand is that the vast majority of children born in the first half of the school year, especially between September to December, will be more physically mature, and hence they are typically seen as more talented.

“But they are simply older than the other children in their year, yet still get the better opportunities to their earlier development.

“It’s very easy to win at youth level. You play the older children, and there is nothing else to it.

“But there is no challenge in that and it doesn’t benefit anybody. How many older children find it too easy at youth level, and then struggle when it gets tougher in adult sport because they haven’t had a challenge?”

A suggestion from Fletcher to promote more opportunities for children would be to continuously try them out in different positions, and give them different roles in games.

For example, the FA could introduce a rule change which meant players would have to change positions every 10 minutes. This could be applied to all sports too, utilised on the rugby pitch or the cricket pitch to allow everyone to get the chance to bat and bowl.

He said: “Just let them explore the game and let them have different opportunities, playing them in different positions throughout and not pigeonholing them in one and setting that for the rest of their lives.

“I see it far too often where youths are a defender, a striker, a batsman, a bowler, a front or a back, but you are narrowing the opportunities to try different positions and develop different skills.

“What tends to happen is, if you’re left footed, you get put at left back and told to play there all the way through. What people should be doing is putting these children on the right and telling them to only use their right foots for spells, and they will develop new skills.”

The experienced rugby coach hints that 15, the age of maturation in boys, is the time to start to putting players into positions and working on specific aspects of the game.

It is generally at this point that you get a good indication of what there physicality is going to be like, how fast they are and how tall or short they may be.

Of course, boys may mature earlier or later than 15, while the age is generally lower in girls.

It is at this point that they start flourishing having developed the many skills through the various age levels.

Fletcher also stated that there is too much emphasis put on results and the glory in youth sport, and that it should be more about participation up until the age of maturation.

He said: “Adults have a game plan because there is more chance of success by playing certain players in certain positions, and the less able children will often not play a part.

“We measure goals and results, but to children winning isn’t that important. Having fun and playing with their friends is the most important, and winning comes about 10th in the list.

“I see children go over to their parents and are asked immediately, ‘did you win?’ and ‘did you score?’, and that can deflate a child instantly as they may have played well but couldn’t impact the final team result.

“What parents should be asking is, ‘did you work hard?’, ‘did you enjoy it?’ and ‘what was the most creative thing you liked about the game?’”