Rugby coaching tips to get the most from warm up sessions
Get maximum impact from your rugby warm-up drills with the help of these coaching tips from Gethin Watts, assistant coach to the Wales U18 national side, Ospreys regional academy manager and assistant coach to the Ospreys U18 regional squad.
I will spend up to 20 minutes out of a one-hour training session on the warm-up. This time is not a conditioning session but a combination of the following:
- A reinforcement of the last session's themes.
- A mental and physical preparation for the coaching session. The rugby skills are practised at a slower pace than normal, around half intensity.
- A chance to practise and revise our staple plays.
Since we are working towards our game plan, it is important that I take a very active role in the warm-up. Coaches quite often leave this phase to a junior coach, player or conditioning coach, but the risk is that some of the focus on the themes we are trying to achieve is lost.
What's in the warm up?
There are a lot of footwork skills, since they have so much relevance to all areas of the game.
We might use ladders, but I think they are more use in the conditioning sessions that players will be doing at other times. Yes, they add variety in a long season, but they are not crucial in a team practice session.
As heart rates increase, I will include some dynamic stretching exercises, but we don't use static stretches due to the weight of evidence around against them.
Start with "staple" plays
I have read with interest articles in Rugby Coach Weekly by Jim Love, the New Zealand Maori coach, who likes to practise skills at half pace.
We do the same in the warm-up, especially in what I call our "staple" plays. The moves we do on a regular basis are the simple ones that require players to co-ordinate their actions.
It's a "wrap"
A "wrap" move is where the fly half switches or cuts with another player. This player, instead of running back towards the forwards or straight like a normal switch, runs back out again.
This means running away from the cover defence and into the hole left by the fly half. It requires footwork, changes of angle, balance and, inevitably, timing and practice.
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Examples of staple plays might be switches with the fly half (we call them "wraps") and pop balls which have different angles of running ("unders and overs").
Reinforcement
Finally, the warm-up is about reinforcing the themes from our last practice.
One of my co-coaches, Gruff Rees, often runs a session in which the warm-up will include five minutes of continuous lineouts and plays from the lineout.
These are all based on the last session of the previous practice. Players will swap in and out, acting as passive defenders when they are not in the move.
They are all at a low intensity and build a set of plays. They ensure all the players in the squad know their roles should they be called upon as a replacement.
Keep it simple
From my experience of coaching at lots of different levels, the best coaches keep it simple, repeating good practice over and over again. What changes as you move up the scale, in terms of skill, is the attention to detail.
This article is taken from International Rugby Coaching, a monthly journal aimed at professional, semi-professional, senior, aspiring and experienced rugby coaches. Click the link to subscribe to International Rugby Coaching.
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