Teaching the rules of the sport can often be the most difficult thing for any teacher of any sport. Rugby rules dictate that passes must not go forward and that can lead to confusion for those new to the sport.

"A lot of the time they'll pass the ball backwards and then they'll take a few steps backwards after they catch it," Rhame said. "The main point is that when they catch the ball, they run forward. Even if they're going to get tackled, they're moving the ball forward up the field."

By the time the players reach high-school age, they will have been taught how to tackle properly and also how to be tackled.

"They start doing a modified tackle at the 11 and 12 age and once they hit the 13 and 14 age, they're into full tackle," Rhame said. "A lot of people think it's really vicious because there's no equipment and you're running at full speed, but because there is no equipment, we teach the proper tackling techniques — how to tackle safely and how to be tackled safely. Those are the key points to being tackled in a safe way. It's how to protect your shoulder, how to protect your head. Those are the major concerns."

And players who are not comfortable playing contact rugby can remain in the noncontact group for a couple of years until they feel they are ready to tackle and be tackled.

"It's great with the young kids that they're not in contact until they're 12 or 14 if they want to be," Hector said. "By then we've hopefully taught them enough about what to do to make a proper tackle to avoid the injury so that they can be safe."

And they should also have played enough rugby by then to know the basic skills of the game, and that might lead to spots on national teams for some of the minis participants.

"The minis are our primary goal for the most part," Hector said. "As a rugby lover, I think it's important for kids to get their hands on the ball earlier. Fourteen's too late if they want to go on and play for Canada or whatever, so having these kids touch a ball at six years old is just great."

"The point is to try to develop those core skills of pass and catch that teams like England and New Zealand are so far ahead of us in and try to bring it up to the standards that we expect of Team Canada because, physically, we're no different than any of the other countries," Mackie said. "It's just a matter of getting it started as early as we can."

rmassey@guelphmercury.com