The art of Tyre Flipping

Not all of us have access to world class gyms to build strength into our condition trainings at practise and so it is important to make the best of what equipment you have got!
We were lucky enough to get a pile of old tractor tyres which by the way hold some substantial weight! With our first training of the year and nearing the end of an hour and a half of Ball skills and conditioning. We put players out in groups of 3 to have a tyre flipping race! Boys loved it, was hard work but outcomes were great!
Don't be afraid to work with what ever equipment you have access to, no matter how basic or high tech!
Here is some footage of the tyre flipping in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtzA4xBH8sw

Ivan Cleary Insights

 I attended a seminar this week put on by New Zealand Rugby League this week with 4 guest speakers as below sharing their coaching knowledge and insights from Vodafone Warriors Coach Ivan Cleary!

Ivan Cleary - Head Coach of the Vodafone Warriors

Here's some quotes that I found interesting:
Ivan Cleary -

On Mental Toughness -

Regardless of circumstance you can get the job done

On Young players being introduced to NRL from under 20's and knowing when they are ready -

Young players tend to have a huge gap between their best and worst performances, when they have reduced that gap between best and worst, they are ready


When things aren't going to plan during your season -

You must break things down to perspective and context

When things are going bad, you find out if you have the right people around you

Things are never as good as you think or as bad as you think

You have to focus and get better at things that win games and train that way, no matter how much repetition is involved.

Team Culture, don't under estimate it!

Coming to the end of our representative campaign, I reflect on what we have achieved to date, what we have implemented, focus at trainings, player base and coming into our last game what has been the key to our development and success? Culture! I have been involved with teams over the past few years with examples of great team Culture and extremely poor team culture. I have put together some thoughts on what elements create a quality team culture. Obviously every team has very different profiles, personalities and make ups that make it entirely unique so these thoughts are based around my own experiences.

Key factors to creating a quality team culture

Spine

- Create a "Spine"or leadership group. I see the "spine of the team being positional and creating leaders in these positions provides stability, direction and if developed right can have a major impact on how the game is played.
Spine Example:
Hooker
Lock
Number 8
Half Back
First 5
Fullback

This may alter where your 7 is a part of the spine rather than 8 or Centre may be in the mix rather than 15.

The Captain I would choose would always be in the "Spine"and he then has a number of players that he can look to for support, advice or confidence if required. The "Spine" become a key part of our trainings around setting high standards, intensity, discipline and execution. Pre match I always spend 10 mins with the "spine"as a group discussing conditions, opposition, game day tactics and some key goals to achieve on field.

Organisation

Players find it easy to give strong levels of commitment to a very organised campaign, where trainings lack direction, flow, variation, focus and have a fun element players, without this players can drift with their levels of commitment.
Put yourself in the players shoes, you turn up to training to see all drills laid out, coaches/Managers ready for action vs Turning up and coaches no where to be seen. Keeping to time frames is also critical, if you say you will start at 6.30, start at 6.30!!

Players Voice

In teams I coach I value the players voice and opinions, questions without we would be coaching a team of robots! I always make time for questions, thoughts and make time to spend 1 on 1 time with players where required. If the voices don't have an avenue to communicate you will only get issues and players feeling under valued! I also try to push our players to think creatively in how to solve problems.

Discipline - 3 Tortures

I was introduced to a concept a little while back by another coach where he led an internal discipline program run largely by the players and since then I have implemented and found the players responded really well to this!

Basically there is 3 levels of tortures:

1. Tell a Joke to the team - if no one laughs go to Torture 2
2. Sing a song - If No one sings the chorus go to torture 3
3. Team Duties (Cleaning changing sheds, picking up gear after training etc)

Basically if some one is 5 mins late to training for the first time the team may ask them to say a joke. Effectively this is a warning from the team that they don't find it acceptable and you have been given a warning.
For some of the players standing in front of 30 people singing a song on their own is not an easy measure....
Although I introduced the team to it, they have bought into it and take ownership of discipline. Recently coming to the end of our season they have added that players on Torture 2 have to sing and dance adding a new level...

Guest Speakers

We have been very lucky this season to bring in guests speakers from the likes of Ex All Blacks Jeff Wilson and Mark Mayerholfer to Super 14 and ITM Cup Players. The focus is to get the guests discuss things around training ethic, commitment, sacrifices, goal setting, challenges etc so the players get a feel for what steps are required to achieve things at the highest levels.
I will speak with the guests prior and talk about some of the goals and themes we are trying to achieve as a team and having these guests add their voice to further enforce things like work rate, standards etc makes our job as coaches easier!
Players also respond very well to different voices coming in and creates an exciting environment!

Self Analysis

Over the past 2 years I have developed most match review forms where players look at their game from a technical execution basis post match. Often you find a player can lose confidence about the "1 missed tackle"scenario and dwell on this losing confidence and motivation. Generating this form as meant that players need to think more around the entire game and there execution and then work to developing specific goals for the upcoming game. Also it gives them an opportunity to discuss team performance etc and get their perspective across.
Largely I find the more players use it the more honest they become with their own analysis and the more focused they become for achieving their goals!

Here are examples of the form I have developed :

Step 1 - Technical Analysis:

Step 2 - Comments on own Performance and Team Performance:

Step 3 - Set Goals for Next Match

As a coach I always make a point of acknowledging the players efforts in and around this and try to help as much as possible with them to achieve these goals. It is also very important to provide "pats on backs"when their individual goals are achieved!

Team Vision and Mission

Drive a session before your season starts with the team coming up with a united Vision and Mission, I then split them into groups: Tight 5, Loosiesmins to go and that was the last chance to achieve their vision and mission.

Here is an example of what our team came up with this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD44MqPiXr4
I then created it into a short Video with some action footage with key stuff related to the group:

The ownership is then on the leaders within the "spine"to get the team to live and breathe that vision. I often hear our front row saying "Ruthless"before the ball goes in or our back 3 calling "Hammer"when they counter attack!

Enjoyment

When a team enjoys coming to training, enjoys the style of Rugby the team plays, enjoys the company of their team mates, nothing is better!!! When things try to derail your progress as a team it makes it near impossible and ultimately gets the best out of all involved!!

Little Things can play a large bearing!

I asked our team after our first competition to come up with a team song that would stay with us throughout our season! the team chose "Lean on Me"which you can now hear at full noise in the changing sheds after any of our games! Here is the team singing it to our hosts on an away trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z5VihpbMvo

These sorts of little things add up and create great team Culture!!


To sum it up for me: Choose Good People, Create Good Team Culture and focus on continual development and improvement and great things will happen!!

Don't underestimate the bearing it has in your teams success because with Bad Team Culture it can make a season a very long one!!

Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their player and motivate.

Vince Lombardi

Hold your cards close to your cheast!

Graham Henry had some of his set piece strike moves broadcasted to the world thanks to some photographer that through ethics out the window....
With technology heading forward at a rate of knots even at school or club level it is very easy to video tape a game and know the oppositions tactics (generally at this level most teams might have 1 or 2 patterns of play).
Important thing is I think at Club and school level that you don't get too sidetracked with the oppositions strengths and panic. A team I'm assistant coach of has a semi this weekend and our head coach is in a panic as the opposition has a strong and experienced tight 5 and we are missing a few key starting props due to injury etc. The stress of their strength is getting on top of him to a point where he is forgetting that although they have a strong and experienced tight 5 they are unfit and play a 1 dimensional style of Rugby with pick and go's and runners off 9. We have an outstanding backline and a far more mobile forward pack, this to me negates their tight 5 and just means we need to focus on our strengths and be confident as far as a team profile we have a better one than the opposition!
I'm sure Graham Henry is deep down a little ticked off with his tactics being exposed but if he focused on this and didn't move on and adapt he wouldn't be doing his job as coach of the All Blacks! My point being - Hold your cards close to your cheast but if your cards are telegraphed to the opposition don't dwell on it, adapt and move on!

Offloads

Offloading in the tackle

Think back over the past season at how many times your team or an opposition team has made a great break through a player dominating the contact and having the ability to offload the ball to a supporting player. In NZ this is something that comes to players naturally and you will often see a midfielder dominate a tackler and have the ability to free arms and offload a pass. Maybe this is because league has such an influence in NZ and Australia and players are pulling some of the favourable plays they see from the NRL. Some coaches find this sort of play to be to “higher risk” and will not allow players to play this style of rugby.
However if you look at it from another perspective if you can develop this skill and work on the running lines of your support players maybe the reward will well and truly outweigh the risk. Recently I have brought a focus into our trainings around use of a fend and ball transfer with an add on of the offload in contact. The players really enjoyed it and elements were translated into how we played the game on the Saturday following. The keys I see to developing this as a weapon in your teams repertoire are:

Ball Carrier
Footwork in lead up to contact and ability to create and attack a weak shoulder.
Dominating the contact and keeping Feet alive in contact
Ball carried away from the tackler so players have the ability to free arms to pass the ball

Support Player
Eyes on ball carrier and identify if he is attacking defensive player on the inside or outside shoulder
Making a decision which channel to support in (inside or outside)
Head towards the ball carrier late to give defensive player little time to slide and cover the space
Communicate to ball carrier about where he is eg: short ball etc
Receive ball accelerate into space

There is a number of mini unit drills that can be done to develop this within your players but each step creates an individual skill execution and needs to be developed in an ongoing process to get the best result, as they say “Rome wasn’t built in a day”!

My thoughts are develop quality offload opportunities, develop quality support lines and communication you will end up with greater opportunities to score more points and ultimately win more games!

TUBS

A couple of years ago another coach introduced me to a concept that struck a chord with my own Philosophies on Rugby and simplified what for me our game is all about!
T.U.B.S

Them - The opposition

Us - Our Team

Ball - Gold!

Space - attack this area

So if we apply it to how it fits into a game plan scenario: Ball is turned over through a tight head at scrum time, loose pass is thrown from number 8 who runs the open side coming off the back of the scrum to 9 who see's in the mean time the opposition backline has come up defensively (Them), he then looks to see where we have opportunity to attack with our players (Us and Space), see's space down teh blind throws a pass to fullback who attacks space with the ball and scores!!!!

TUBS - Get your players using this as a decision making tool on the field and you will see great things!!!!

Here is a short video from a club team I coach applying TUBS to how we attack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzC3YpGcIOs

How Tactically aware are your players?

As coaches we all want our players to be proficient in all areas of the game: Technical,Tactical, Physical and Mental but do we ever spend time understanding where our players understanding is at?
Below is a questionaire a super 14 development team used to get an understanding of where their player base was at in terms of tactical knowledge:

Tactical Questionnaire

1. What is your preferred position and why?


2. What are the key functions of your role?




3. How do you perform these roles in a game and at training?




4. What are you good at?




5. What do you need to work on?




Outcomes

1. Player to fill in the above questionnaire



2. To discuss the above player information



3. To develop an individual tactical development plan together.

Coaching Menu

A mate of mine Cliff Bailey has recently launched a new website called Coaching Menu. Cliff is a breath of fresh air in the coaching world and I would highly recommend anyone serious in coaching Rugby or League that they touch base with him!! Cliff is a great guy and understands all the challenges coaches come up against and provides solutions and tools to become more effective as a coach in any environment!!

Here's Cliff's site http://www.coachingmenu.co.nz/

Defence Philosophy

Came across this gem a team set around their Philosophy defence back in 2002.

1. We are 80 minute defenders
No one will be better than us
We will win the defensive battle as a team as individuals.

2. We play for territory
We defend that Territory
Defence wins territory

3. We seek and smash attackers in 2+3 man packs, backing ourselves and each other.
Our goal is to drive the attacker backwards turning the momentum of play in our favour.

4. We must pressure key opposition players especially key playmakers into making mistakes!
Grounded ball is our ball
The hard chase must be clearly defined. "Maximum acceleration"
This pressure must be for the whole match not just once or twice.

Peter Thorburn's Challenge to Coaches

THE CHALLENGE TO COACHES
“A DISCUSSION PAPER”
Peter Thorburn (updated May 2008)




Some thoughts and ideas to provoke positive and imaginative coaching and validating much of what you are familiar with

1. YOUR ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
A lot depends on the level of team you are coaching. Easiest at top level ( but the expectations are higher) as you can pick from the whole player pool to suit your required style of play. Hardest is at club or school level where the limited numbers and talent available means you have to adapt your game plans—patterns of play, etc to suit.
Selector 25%: Eye for ‘talent’ - use assistants?
Coach 35%: Be humble. Get assistance for key or specific areas- no-one knows it all.
Man Management 20%: To get the best from your players, know them - what makes them ‘tick’ and how to get through to them.
Motivator 20%: Are you a ‘Carrot’ or ‘Stick’ coach.
Your Style: Earn Respect—hard to earn—easy to be lost
Are you a ‘shouter-yeller’?
Do you use ‘FEAR’ as a motivational tool?
Be wary of playing ‘mind games’ with players
Be consistent and honest
BE AN INNOVATIVE—IMAGINATIVE-- PROBLEM SOLVER
Encourage input from team (competitions, suggestion box, etc)
NEVER discuss players, negatively in bars or outside the team
Always tell players who are not playing before they read about it
Try to be as consensual as possible BUT the ‘buck has to stop with you’
YOU have control over most that happens in the team—if something goes wrong - LOOK at YOURSELF first
Responsibilities: To facilitate the players and management in reaching their potential.
To produce the performance and results expected or agreed to.
To be ‘head’ of the family.
To be the catalyst for all the group enjoying the experience.
To encourage the ‘PROTOCOLS’ around which the whole organisation functions (‘THE RULES’).

2 MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE
Assistant Coach
A compatible person with complementary positional skills.
Manager
Can take so much ‘pressure’ off to enable you to ‘coach’.
Fitness – Strength – Skills Trainer
Ensure that with your input, the ‘trainer’ is implementing drills etc that are game specific, and that they have your agreement. Many coaches in the recent past have abdicated their role with this. Consequently many of the ‘drills for skills’ are not rugby specific.
Use of Judo—Karate,Pilates,Yoga,TM,Hypnosis etc to improve techniques,attitudes and pressure handling.


Medical

Access to doctor, physio, rubbers etc—have an open mind and encourage same from “medical” team
Public Relations (PR)
WHO talks to media, etc
WHEN and at what level of information
Avoid mixed messages.



3. PLANNING THE SEASON
Goals for Season
Must be REALISTIC but CHALLENGING TO ALL.
Conditioning
Ensure the basic aerobic work is carried out before the concentrated anaerobic and hardening processes are actioned.
RUGBY IS STILL PREDOMINANTLY AN “AEROBIC” GAME.
Pre-season Trials and Games
Playing trial and pre-season games is the best method of achieving match fitness and observing players.
The Competition
Probably out of your hands, but plan for breaks, increased efforts, key games etc.
The Pitfalls
Have a mentor to turn to if insoluble problems occur—or just to talk and asses where you are at, especially if times get tough.
Learn to read the signs of tiredness, boredom, over training, cliques or negativity developing—nip in bud early.


4. PATTERNS OF PLAY – STYLE OF PLAY – GAME PLANS
Patterns and style of play is really dependent on the ability levels of the players available to you. You will have to cut your cloth to the situation, but always be working to improving the weaker areas (longer-term improvements).
Game plans are the options that are created and trained. The skill is getting the ‘shot callers’ to use the appropriate options at the appropriate time in a game.
The game plan must be flexible, and the confidence given to the shot callers to call the best option, e.g. weather changes prior or during games, opposition actions, strengths or weaknesses that were not expected - train for these situations so that the appropriate ‘options’ can be called.
There are many ways of playing winning rugby - the art is getting ALL your team knowing and producing the agreed action at the appropriate time.
The advent of coaches being linked to the players through radio etc has enabled a lot of ‘cop-out’ by players, expecting ‘someone else’ to do their thinking.
Player buy in seems to be the modern (and mostly successful) way. It is essential for harmony and consensus, and taps into a bigger pool of knowledge, creating a positive feeling that, because “we had input’ we need to make it work. Manage the process judiciously. Remember you are the Chairman of the Board—and players DO look for direction (not dictatorship).
Player empowerment – The modern way, it has great potential to delve into a wider pool of knowledge, to get consensus and therefore less need for ‘dictatorial’ decision making. Players feel part of something they have bought into. Handle it skillfully and ‘manipulate’ to get the best result for ‘the team’. Remember. you are the coach—the ultimate responsibility lies with you.


5. MOVES – CALL – OPTIONS
Leadership – Ownership - Responsibility
This is not to be confused with captaincy but is about developing individual, mini unit and team leadership--ownership and responsibility.
This helps to develop what I consider some of the key positions in the team – ‘The Shot Callers’ also called “nerve centre players”
It can start by giving every player ownership of one or more moves, then mini units for a group of moves - and backs and forwards for a mix of back moves and forward moves.
It is the individual responsibility to ensure the move is understood by all, and that any new players are familiarised. At trainings, when appropriate they prompt the ‘nerve centre’ players “what about this option?”
It does build pride – ownership - confidence and is invaluable and enjoyable. You will find that players put ‘the acid’ on teammates to know what’s on and to try and get the shot callers to ‘use my move’.
It also encourages what I call ‘pull thru’ move calling. Rather than waiting till just before the ball comes back into play, e.g. at awarding of a scrum, the tight head prop calls to the ½ (or whomever) ”what’s on???” If the call comes back early as to the direction the ball will go, the scrum can set early to promote the direction, and then get on with the technique required—also helps to get to the next phase and what role to play. The whistle is the trigger. Encourage this ‘pull thru’ attitude in all phases of play.


6. TRAINING
Training is a set of repetitive actions to commit conscious acts to the sub-conscious - so that when called on, they are able to be re-produced, usually under stress or duress.
It does not need to be boring or dull.
As with fitness training, it is like a ‘bank account’ ,to be drawn on when needed. If you don’t make the deposits—it is not there when called on.
It is beneficial and necessary to train for many of the phases of play when team or players are under duress (tired) as this is when teams often falter during games, e.g. lineout practice, scrum practice, set moves, skills etc.

THE TRUE TEST OF OUR CAPABILITIES IN MOST SITUATIONS IS WHAT WE ARE LIKE ‘UNDER PRESSURE’.


Learning/Teaching/Coaching
All people learn in one or a combination, of four different learning processes, i.e visual, audiological (listening) reading or kinesthetically (touch, feel, walk through).VARK
We are inclined to teach in the way that we learn and very often the recipients miss the message.
Players will nod that they have picked it up when asked, as they don’t want to look ‘slow’ in front of the team. Create the learning environment that ensures all players are given the best chance of comprehension—It is worth the extra time needed.

Training – Physical Fitness
Rugby had changed from a predominantly aerobic game of dynamic go forward ball to the more anaerobic static, flat line defence, go to ground of the recent past.(due almost entirely to the “USE IT OR LOSE IT” law brought in mid 1990,s
With the advent of the ability to maul and generate more dynamic play,through the introduction of the 5 second law, aerobic fitness will become more predominant.
Nobody EVER died of EXHAUSTION playing or training Rugby.

Early season training is the time to test the physical and mental hardness of your players.
Do a guts test to see how far each individual can go till ‘tossing in the towel’. Especially effective when dealing with an influx of ‘new’ players. Then you will know who is going to keep ‘giving’ when the games go down to the wire.
Create variation of environment for early season training, e.g. at the beach (in water for resistance work), hill work for leg power and body position and ball carriage etc. But always have specific goals of achievement from the training exercise.

Training Mental
An area of great potential improvements.
We talk of mental hardness, mongrel dog, NGI (never give in) bravery.
Look at what makes the Steve Gurney’s, Rob Hammills, Ed Hilary’s, etc keep going.
Some of the BRAVEST persons in history were puny, little nondescript PHYSICAL specimens, who had something inside that said ‘NGI’. Use role models.

GAME PREPARATION MENTAL and INDIVIDUAL
Very few players are doing real beneficial individual pre game planning, i.e. methodically, at some time (times) before match day - play HIS role in every perceivable phase of play, in his head—go through all phases - what are the potential options, etc. Takes 15-20 minutes to play a full game in the head.
Training Disciplines
Rugby is a game of ‘self discipline’. We can train for discipline as readily as we can train for anything, e.g. do several actions each day that we do not enjoy too much. Do the dishes, mow the lawns, get up 20 minutes earlier, walk to the shops or up stairs, never take ‘short cuts’ when on a run or training.
Do or go the extra yards - it becomes second nature.

7. SKILLS AND UPSKILLING
Ball Skills
The area of greatest need at ALL levels of the New Zealand game.
EVERY player should have a ball—it should become an extension of his arms.
Carry it everywhere to do with rugby
Generate ball skill competitions amongst team—role models and ‘best practice’ used as benchmark.
It helps with self-discipline - it encourages and gives confidence and the benefits carry through into team performance.

The Key Areas of Weakness Are:

Passing
Especially off weaker hand - also short/long—long/short feint passing skills, passing accuracy - passing under pressure –putting support players into gaps - understanding the benefits of putting the ball into the correct ‘catching zone’.

Ball Carriage and Ball into Impact – ‘The Tuckers’
There are only two occasions when ‘TUCKING’ is preferable and five to six GOOD reasons NOT to:
The fallacy that ”I can run faster with the ball tucked” has been disproven,except beyond 20 metres.
Kicks to recover ball, eg grubber, stab kick chip etc.
General dexterity of ball handling is very poor.

8. OTHER AND GENERAL
Includes Team Talks – When – Why – How Long – By Whom – To Whom
Opposition Analysis
Important to know something about strengths and weaknesses in opposition. Charge individual players to research and SHARE the knowledge gained, e.g. handy for a loosie to know which foot a 9 or 10 prefers etc - BUT don’t over concentrate on opponents—get your own game in order. BEWARE OF PARALYSIS BY ANALYSIS.
A liitle “fear” of the opposition is of value.
Team and Individual Debrief
Team
Based around particular game plans used—use sub groups and units to critique actions relative to plan.
With the advent of analysis systems, players have at times become ‘lazy’ and just look at their game and only at the play immediately prior and post the action they are individually involved in.
They must identify a situation, look at what were the available options, was their action correct or effective, and replay in their mind, several times, the correct action.
Encourage ALL players to go right through every point scoring movement by either team to see what they DID or DIDN’T do for the points to be scored.


Peter Thorburn -- updated May 2008

Advice to Assistant Coaches

Here is some advice Chris Boyd ex Sharks Super 14 Coach & Wellington NPC:


"As an assistant it is VERY difficult to get personal balance when you don't agree with the philosophy of those pulling the strings

Always think problems to solutions

Control what you can control

Debate and commit ( you need to do this in private not in front of players )- keep challenging but be aware of the coach not wanting to be challenged and will begin to find your questioning mind an irritation

Whatever the coaching group decides even if you don't agree you need to commit to - cant speak out against other coaches - PROBLEM - find the solution - ( you may just have to bite your tongue and publically agree)

Best way to control your destiny is to be a head coach if you are working with somebody else be a GOOD TEAM man and use the opportunity to grow your coaching."

Very wise words!

Great Defence Drill

Came across this little gem of a drill by Scotty "Razor" Robertson last night will try it out at training tonight. Already thought of game plan related progressions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aKpjBN2GyU

Wayne Bennett Pearls of Wisdom

Listening is the art of communication

Don’t lack confidence, The stand is full of those

Coach lesser teams for upskilling

No pay off for potential, only results

Demanding of things they think they are incapable of achieving

Telling a player he isn’t good enough,balanced by telling him he did everything possible to be successful.

Age is not a factor. How much are you prepared to give. Desire, dedication,enthusiasm

Isn’t it amazing how much can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit

There are no great men, only great challenges which ordinary men are are forced by circumstances to meet

Accept criticism and disappointment as part of life, and when it comes, stand up straight, look at it in the eyes & say you cannot defeat me. I am bigger than you

Don’t die with the music in you

Winners make commitments, losers make promises

Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences

Success can shatter confidence because of expectations, and recipients begin to change things about himself

If you haven't read his book, go get it today!!! Wayne is a mastermind of coaching and continues a legacy of greatness!!

Colin Cooper Quote

Here's a Boomer from 2010 Hurricanes Super 14 Coach Colin Cooper:


"It's all about the team and it's all about discipline, picking the right players and weighing up ability versus character. It's also about playing the right game plan and surrounding yourself with good people who can drive that."
Colin Cooper

Players Assessment

Yesterday we started our first part of our build up to North Harbour Under 18's 2010. North Harbour have been running a skills academy for under 15 & Under 17 players for the past few years with a focus on upskilling these players to feed into age group rep teams as they will be eligible for two years in the age group. We started our identification process yesterday with a 2 hour Player assessment workshop that consisted of the following:

Fitness: Yo Yo Test You can see an example of a yo yo test at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYx62e2VJI
Passing Assessment
Running/Commit Defender Assessment
Defence
Ball into Contact
Support Play

The Assessment puts each player into a situation where we can view players performing the skill in game related situations. We had a large group of 34 players and to assess each player meant we had 4 different coaches assessing and rotated the players in mini units.
I was looking after Running Commit Defender Assessment and here is the breakdown of what we were looking at:

Ball Carrier Commit
Controls Position
Eye Contact
Running Lines, "Y" lines
Change of Pace-Pull
Split Vision
Controls Defenders
Decision to pass
Timing of pass
Stays Involved

Support Player
Positioning (depth)
Scanning
Controls Defender
Finds Space
Timing
Running lines, "Y" lines
Adjusts for support

each player was looked at on their left side and right side and rated on a scale of (3 best - 1 worst)

The interesting thing when you break it down to the fundamentals a theme became apparent across the player base and you start to see the areas that trainings will need to be focused from the "get go".

Skill testing is an area often overlooked as a "not enough time" or "Takes to much resource" scenario for coaches. I personally believe this is a critical factor to the blueprint of our planning as coaches. If you want to play a game based around using the width of the field but your passing as a unit is not there or Playing a confrontational game but players unable to "win the contact" at the collision area it will become a battle to achieve game plan. To me skill testing is an essential part of assessing your team profile and vital before planning game plans!

Some Great Quotes

Here a couple of quotes I came across the last few days:

"The Six W's: Work will win when wishing won't."
-- Todd Blackledge

"The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right and doing it exactly right."
-- Edward C. Simmons

"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender."
-- Vince Lombardi

"You can't make a great play unless you do it first in practice."
-- Chuck Noll

"It isn't hard to be good from time to time insports. What is tough, is being good every day."
-- Willie Mays

"Adversity causes some men to break, and others to break records."
-- Source Unknown

"Make sure that team members know they are working with you, not for you."
-- John Wooden

"Leadership, like coaching, is fighting for the hearts and souls of men and getting them to believe in you."
-- Eddie Robinson

"What makes a good coach? Complete dedication."
-- George Halas

"Every game is an opportunity to measure yourself against your own potential."
-- Bud Wilkinson

Off the ball work

Off the ball work - This to me is one of my focusses in our attack play and something if you want to make the most of your attack all players must provide. Although we often focus on the ball carrier when watching games it is often the guys outside and inside, running support lines, making defence take notice that create the space for the ball carrier.
The off the ball work is a thankless job generally but teams that work hard on this aspect of their attack play seem to have an abundance of two things:
Time & Space! These two things are some of the most critical factors in execution of quality attack ultimately resulting in tries!!
Think back to how often we see wingers standing on their wings gazing down the sidelines, waiting for that overlap that will be provided by players inside of them.... This is a pet hate of mine and a real focus for my coaching of the backs this year. My focus for the next few weeks is to "sell" the off the ball work to our backline in all facets of attack! This off the ball work may consist of teh following: Communication, Dummy Running, dragging opposite to create space, support and basically everything and anything to manipulate space for our team to attack!
A chap I have coached with recently summed up the game we love so perfectly and simpily:
Rugby is: TUBS
Them
Us
Ball
Space

You make them think more about us, maintain control of the ball and attack the space!

League Drills

There is a lot that can be pulled from Rugby league in the use of Phase attack around rugby, the off the ball work, block running and support lines constantly ask questions of defence. This drill I came across on You Tube forces teh ball carrier to make a decision about attacking space.

View the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJOMcmZyt4&feature=related

Mental and Physical training

Here's an interesting clip I came across on You Tube with work they are doing at the International Rugby Academy in South Africa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgpQ9w_ECpw&playnext_from=TL&videos=NZ-wdEfn82o
We are just at a planning stage for our under 18 representative team at the end of the year and interested to know if anyone else has some material about quality team building exercises incorporating physical and mental training?

Oldie but a goodie

I filmed some footage of top skills coach Dave Rennie taking some of the players in the advanced Players course at IRANZ through an "Old school" backs drill. I now use this frequently in my warmups with backs and forwards as it gets the guys switched on, organised and ultimately they enjoy it!!

You can check out the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SwxKhc5xIY

Jeff Wilson

Jeff Wilson All Black legend and now backs coach of North Harbour attended one of our trainings recently and observed and added some simple insights that I found quite interesting.


Catch the pass early: Jeff wanted to see players with their hands turned into the player passing the ball rather than receiving the ball whilst drifting. His reasoning behind this was that if you receive the ball early you have more chance of holding the opposition, where receiving the ball whilst drifting tended to take your opposite with you.

When you think about it this is something that is often overlooked but is so critical in the execution of backline moves!

Flat backline phase attack: Off the ball work has to start from the outside to create space for the ball carrier.

All to often especially in phase attack players tend to "run tram lines" and this results in lost opportunity. If the outsides work hard off the ball, space will open up!

I came across this You Tube video of Jeff Wilson talking with Josh Kronfield on how to beat a man 1 on 1. Some good insights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3tDaq26AlI&playnext_from=TL&videos=A_6GRgxHwt8

My Rugby Stats

In August I was introduced to the people behind www.myrugbystats.com down at Murray Mexted's International Rugby Academy. At first I was a little unsure of what it was they were doing but I decided with the start of a new club season to try out there site.
So far I think it is great, perfect way to communicate with your team and keep a track of stats, plus updates like photos, videos etc. There is also a mechanism to keep stats although this is an area I would like to see a few more options that could be quite beneficial!

I firmly believe the rugby players these days crave feedback and like to track where there rugby is heading and sites like this provide a great resource to meet the needs of these players!

Check out our senior firsts teams profile at the below link:
http://www.myrugbystats.com/team.aspx?id=c492c807-65b3-476c-b1e8-52f417531f4a