For U7s we found the following skills worked really well for that age group :-

1. Positional awareness - get your "wingers" to stay on the wing.
2. Good support play (as already mentioned) by having an adjacent runner.
3. Pass before being tagged.

All these are skills which will be beneficial when moving from tag to contact anyway. We trained the positional awareness by having running lines marked on the pitch (with cones but use what you will) and NO player could move out of their lane. This brought the 1v1 and we taught them to pass to support player before the tag and go around the defender in the same lane. We found we had to compromise this with allowing the crossing of one lane only but for 2 steps only. Once that skill was reasonably well mastered we then made a rule that only the wingers could score tries and emphasised passing just before getting tagged to avoid the ball going straight to the winger and a waiting defender! [Once you have the ball going to the end of the line you can then train your players to switch direction by you shouting "Switch" - but we never got there!]. Obviously we rotated positions so all the players got hands on experience at all positions. As coaches we called "run straight", "support" and "pass early" as and when needed.   As always with U7s you need infinite patience and do small parts at a time, gradually stepping up the drill.

The bonus is that it helps your team to avoid "honey pot" rugby (where all the little bees are chasing the ball) but it causes defences some problem because the defending team's players end up getting in the way of each other.

Wish you all the best.

PW

Fatboy Zim

Whilst I wouldn't normally advise you to coach different kids, different things, for the set moves I have found that if you can get some of the more rugby advanced kids to pull them off, then others tend to follow.  This season I have used 3 very simple set plays starting with around 5 or 6 children confident in them and now we have nearly all the children (20 or so) able to use these tactics confidently.  Also I have 24 children in my squad that can ALL perform a switch/scissors. It took me a very short time to get them all to confidently perform this in training and is a simple, simple skill to coach in a square. Try it trust me they are more capable than we give them credit for. They don't all pull it off in matches but they are putting in a couple most weeks now and it always leaves other coaches impressed.

I have also used the extra rules mentioned in an earlier post, like no running backwards or a turnover, two hands on the ball or a turnover and a minimum number of passes before tries are scored.  Once you get them passing reasonably well I also find that allowing less tags before a turnover helps too. 

As for the less scrupulous side of things this is obviously less desirable in childrens tag than in adults but there are ways of reading any rules to suit your team as with all forms of rugby.  For example whilst Tag IS a non contact sport what do you do with the bigger kids that don't tend to have the speed, all have mentioned, or yet the footwork to create.  To my mind you use their natural abilities as with senior rugby.  I have found using the bigger, slower children as pretend forwards and getting them to run straight and offload quickly as described earlier creating gaps behind tight taggers, keeps these children involved and interested in the game until they can move on to contact rugby and use their natural abilities properly.  Big kids can run straight opposition players don't have to take contact, they can move out of the way. Invariably this either opens a gap for the bigger player to go through or at least the faster on coming support runners.  I appreciate this is a bit unethical, but try telling that to the bigger kid that never scores tries.  Running stright is not against the rules, obviously we don't condone dropping the shoulder etc,  but you will find that this is not an issue if you don't coach it. 

Before you all jump on me, telling me i'm a thug remember rugby is a game for all shapes and sizes and with tag add speeds to that list too.  If you don't keep the bigger players interested you won't have them come the contact seasons. 

The one thing that puts kids off any sport is the inability to do their share of the scoring if you have bigger kids use them close to the try line to run straight, when you take into account the 2/3 steps after the tag rule they have a fair chance of getting on the score sheet.

I have found that Tag rugby can be played with contact rugby shaped sides very succesfully.  I might add that this also makes your future forwards excellent ball handlers and passers and the more confident amongst them have gained great footwork skills too.    

Key element of TAG is 'Go Forward' both in attack and defence -one of the 6 Principles of Play.

Other contributors have mentioned the importance of 'running at spaces not faces' with at least one runner in support left and right, and even better one behind the ball carrier.

The rules of TAG are somewhat contradictory too. It states somewhere that 'a Tagged player must STOP and pass', and then goes on to say somewhere else that players must pass within 3 seconds or three strides.

My advice is that you never coach your players to STOP, but coach them to play the ball within '3 seconds or 3 strides' while continuing to 'go forward'.

That 'go forward' gets the ball carrier in behind defenders through a space, and if there is support, the continuity is great and tries flow.

I condition games in training so that the fast player who normally hogs the ball and runs 200m round the outside and across the pitch is penalised, for not going forward, and for not looking to play in support players.