GAME DEVELOPMENT - failing to plan is planning to fail. As the season has begun for most grades of rugby, it can often mean planning time for those representative coaches out there. How many of us have taken the time to plan your season and campaign? The obvious things to consider like training nights, equipment, competition draws etc. may be in place as a given but what about session content, team culture and leadership development? Some of these may not apply to you all but some may be worth thinking about. The current team I’m involved with doesn’t begin their competition until September, the other coaches and I have had our first catch up together and the topic was a ‘Needs Analysis’ breakdown. Basically what we need to perform! We came up with the following points – The ‘WHAT’: - Fitness, players need to be fitter! - Core skills for their position - Tackle, everyone needs to be a DEMON tackler (not dominant tackler but one that makes 90% of their tackles) - Video Analysis, to enhance players learning and development From here we worked the ‘HOW’ are we going to achieve these 4 critical areas? FITNESS • We have seconded the services of a Tai Kwan Do coach and he will be taking a group of players on a Thursday morning. • Tuesday evenings we will be running a conditioning games sessions focusing on fitness and skills. • Testing, on the weekend - we conducted a 1500,800, 100m test along with Max Press Ups. This will give us a ‘marker’. • Unit Challenge - we’ve grouped players into unit groups. Tight 5, Loosies, Insides & Outsides. From the testing, an average score has been calculated form their results. The challenge is as a unit they need to improve their average score in 6 weeks time. CORE SKILLS • Midweek squad session, the natural train of thought is ‘The earlier we can start training together the better we will be!”. We’ve begun to schedule in a session during the week as a squad. Ensuring you cover the right content in this build up before rep season is critical. We’ve focused on the core positional skills. Lifting, jumping, scrum technique for forwards. Catch-Pass, Alignments, Depth, High ball for the backs. • Saturday mornings we are conducting skill sessions for our squad players to allow them to transfer this into the game environment that day. • Attend and conduct activities at club training sessions. TACKLING • This is going to be covered in every session we take. • Identify the key parts of the tackle and then coach appropriate activities. • Critical aspects for our players are, ‘Alignment’, ‘Line Speed’, ‘Chop Technique’, and ‘Arms of Steel’. VIDEO ANALYSIS • We are beginning to video some club games and reviewing footage at midweek sessions and online. • Also putting up ‘Best practice’ footage from Investec Super Rugby & ITM Cup competitions. WHO is responsible? We then allocated ‘WHO’ was going to be responsible for each component in order to spread the load amongst our coaching team. This is important part of planning to work through so there is clarity around who will get what work done. This is an important part of planning to work through - please see the attached form which could offer some clarity around this process. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS TO PLAN Two other topics to consider is careful planning for our Team Culture and Game Plan, easily summed up as “How are you going to ACT” & “How are you going to PLAY”. Defining these two areas are vital to a successful season and performance. Some questions to ask: • With the players we have available, what kind of rugby could we play on attack? Defence? At Lineout? Etc. • During the season a player avoids you – Why? List the possible answers and ensure you address them at the start of your campaign. • What standards are we going to accept as a team? Planning involves time and thought and an ongoing progress check, have you scheduled this into your diary?
Posted on: Wed, 14 May 2014 04:43:03 +0000
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