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Team building |
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Unit skills |
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Core skills |
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Supreme Being
Group: Moderators
Last Login: 05/03/2010 11:46:41
Posts: 229,
Visits: 1,561
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| Of course we should concentrate on all these, but what should come first in OUR TIME with the team. It might be argued that fitness can be done elsewhere, team building comes naturally and so it is choice between unit skills and core skills. Where do you put your emphasis?
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Forum Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 14/01/2010 19:47:25
Posts: 46,
Visits: 75
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| My view on this is that all training should be as rugby-specific as possible. Pre-season focus should be on two things: fitness, and unit skills. Fitness simply has to be done at this time, because only at this time do you have no pressure on match-results, and therefore you can afford to do intensive work. I don't agree with the current consensus that fitness is primarily work without a ball. If we want fitness skills to translate as directly as possible into games then we must make sure the fitness work imitates the game. Small sided games of rugby are a good way to do this: start with a large pitch and work down to a small pitch (i.e. focus first on building the aerobic base, then anaerobic). Games can include 'no pass', touch, maul (tacklers have to try and strip the ball), etc.. By varying the size of pitch and time length to the players needs an effective pre-season can be had which avoids de-motivating no-ball drills, and works on core and unit skills alongside fitness. However, as you come up to the season you've also got to work on your unit skills, because these are most important to the success of your team, along with motivation. If your team is motivated and well-organised it can hide a lot of its faults. This is the other reason pre-season friendlies can be so important (apart from building fitness). Pre-season friendlies should be used as a diagnostic tool, for seeing your team's strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you have an especially secure line-out reception, then you could work on moves from this, and you might adapt your game plan, to force the opposition to kick for touch more (e.g. chips into the corner). Once you've started the season with positive results you can easily change the balance of training, and, besides, your fitness sessions will be severely limited by recovery from games (look out for weeks where your team doesn't play). Defence is a definite priority pre-season.
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Forum Guru
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 11/03/2010 12:09:27
Posts: 70,
Visits: 149
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| There is always a danger in pitching your coaching above the level of your team especially if you are coaching a new team, Consequently I am of the opinion that there is also a need to incorporate core skills. This will allow you to assess the players' individual skill level and game understanding in order to formulate and revisit your season coaching plan. It is my experience when coaching district age group sides that there is a diverse level of ability within the initial training squad and the introduction of core skill assessment with built in intensity to improve fitness and provide pressure (time and space) is important during the first three or four sessions to allow you to select your final training squad. However if you are coaching a club team then there is always familiarity and continuity and it does make life somewhat easier. Jonesy
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Supreme Being
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 11/03/2010 16:56:51
Posts: 270,
Visits: 309
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| I think this is an area where nobody is right and nobody is wrong. Only the (head?) coach is in a postion to know where his priorities will be in pre-season. So far every club and every seasonthat I have had this responsibility for I have concentrated on core skills - bar one. This was because I identified that core skills were what was most missing. The one season this wasn;t the case was when I was coaching an established team whose core skills were reasonable to start with, and so in their case I worked on unit skills and team orgainsiation. Core skills still involved, but more peripherally. Even when concentrating on core skills, this hasn't been the sole focus of the entire preseason though ... fitness is always intrinsic, but more through intensity of training... certainly no out-and-out fitness work. Why am I going to waste the limited access time we have getting people to run up and down when they can do that in their own time? (this is really a seperate thread I suspect!). And a bunch of players with core skills would be fairly unprepared if we don;t include unit work (e.g. scrum, lineout, restart, back lines, defense) somewhere aong the line. So - in a (personal) line of thought I would look at core skills, individual positional skills, (sub)unit skills, team skills in roughly that order - but the starting point may alter depending on the players' abilities and my knowledge of them. Fitness, team building and organisation come out of the above as a by-product/intrinsic part anyway. didds
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Forum Guru
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 11/03/2010 12:09:27
Posts: 70,
Visits: 149
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| I am in full agreement with Didds on this one. A good coach always assesses and adapts his sessions to his teams priorities and needs in respect to strengths and weaknesses etc.
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