Core skills and fitness drills

It is important to introduce rugby skills training into your training drills as soon as possible, and preferably during the pre-season programme.

This has many benefits. Not only will your players' skills improve, they’ll be more motivated to train hard if a ball is involved, and their fitness levels will get a timely boost.

Set up a core skills and fitness circuit.

Continuous passing gate

  • Players take and give a pass as they run through the gate.

  • Passes must be accurate – dropped balls cost press ups.

  • Players work continuously for 30 seconds and then swap places.
image shows part of fitness circuit working on passing skills

Extend the drill
  • Challenge the players to catch poor passes.

  • Change the width of the gate so players have to adjust their passes.

Sprint relay race

  • Players sprint to the cones, turn, sprint back and high five the next player who then sprints

  • Players work continuously for 1 minute.

    image from circuit drill showing players in sprint relay drill.

Extend the drill
  • Players run backwards on the way back.

  • Players have to do a press up at the cones before sprinting back.

Truck and trailer

  • Players work in pairs running, round the small square.

  • The "trailer" has to stay as close as possible to the leading player – the "truck". They keep giving soft pop passes between them.

  • Players work continuously for 1 minute.

For more core fitness skills drills, click here.

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