Update Your Practice Planning

Even coaches coaching full time find the time they have to prepare their teams insufficient.

I guess it is because you can never do enough both in terms of covering the greatest number of options possible or in getting as close to perfection a smaller number of the most important options.

As a result it is important to make best use of the time available with everything practiced contributing to the end product.

This implies detailed analysis of both your team and of your next opponent. The balance between the two depends on the standard of play of your team.

It may be sufficient to get your team playing to a pattern that suits them as they may not have the capacity to take on board change based on the profile of your next opponent. In to the bargain your knowledge of your opponents may be limited and they may be of such variable standard each week that “research” time can be better spent getting your team to do it right.

Even at the professional level you have to be careful that you are not too prescriptive as a lack of flexibility to a pattern based on detailed analysis of your opposition can lead to lost opportunities and wrong options.

As I have stated before computer analysis limits the “shelf life” of a successful option in gaining possession and in attack. I believe the ultimate in attack is having a range of options that are a reaction to the behavior of the defence. This is what the best teams are able to doing.

The mantra is often “play what is in front of you” and the cues for the attack is the behavior of the defence. Based on the defence’s behavior an option can be selected that puts a player into space, overloads with more players in attack than there are in defence in a given space or draws the defence forward to create space behind them from which the ball can be recovered.

So what follows are some guidelines to make the most of the time available.

Practice Guidelines

Use the game plan and the patterns of play to identify what needs to be practiced. Remember these are based on all the steps that preceded them in the game planning process.

Base the emphasis placed on the following “pillars” on the time of the season :

• Skills – individual, mini-unit, unit and team.
• Strength and conditioning.
• Patterns of Play and Game Plan.
• Mental Skills.

Skills:

The repeated skill in rugby is decision-making. Most frequently it is the ability to choose the most relevant skill from the player’s menu based on the situation. As a result go from skill repetition to a game/ mini -game situation.

In rugby you can be successful but seldom perfect. It is your adaptation to the situation that counts.

There is a real danger if you have unopposed practices as timing is very important, timing that reflects the space you have in a game.

Progressions that decrease time and space; decrease recovery time and offer levels of opposition follow these steps:

• Reduce the number of players in each group. It is essential to have enough gear to do this.
• Opposition:
• Progress from predictable to random opposition.
• Move to a game situation:
• After possession has been one the 2 basic situations are those in which there are more in defence than attack and this in which there are more in attack than defence. Just remember that the skills of defence are easier than those of attack so pressure is applied when there are more in attack. This being the case the skill of attack to find the space available and penetrate through it can equally be practiced when Attack exceeds defence.
• Overload
• This occurs when the pressure that is created is greater than that applied during a game. To demand the repetition of the skill as many times as possible in a given period of time can be used to achieve this especially in an opposed situation in which space is limited.
• When practicing a skill add further options to the one you start with so that you are simulating the game situation.

Momentum and coaching interruptions:

• To maintain momentum brief the players before you start.
• Allow momentum to build as early errors can be solved by allowing the practice to continue.
• Remove a player who is having a problem for a one-on-one with the coach and then insert them back into the practice.
• Only stop the practice if the errors are common after some time has elapsed.

Decision making:

Frequently the decisions that have to be made accurately occur too infrequently in a game to get things right. As a result  coaches need to re-create game-like situations that are opposed. The opposition doesn’t have to be full on “grab” tackles will do.

You are aiming to move the player from:

unconscious/ incompetent to

conscious/ incompetent to

conscious/ competent to

unconscious/ competent.

The two coach approach:

Most teams have two coaches. When you are developing skills one coach should look after the mechanics of the activity and the other should observe the players’ performance and intervene where necessary.

Planning:

Give each practice aims that are shared with the players. Make sure you identify the coaching points and adapt the activities to this. Activities don’t come first as you are not coaching a team to be good at these activities.

Make sure you can achieve the aims in the time allocated.

Do any talking before going to practice so that the practice is all action and flows from one activity to the next.

Make the practices game intensity by being organized. Show the players you are organised by showing them the practice plan before they go to practice. At some levels they will be involved in the planning.

Make the length of practice as long as the ability of the players to focus. I guess the ideal is for them to focus for the length of a game but this is a simplification as to focus for 80 minutes is unrealistic in most circumstances. Players drift in and out of focus based on the situation in the game.

In some unions they seem to think more is better and practices can last for a very long time. The reason that players can last for this long is that the practice lacks intensity and there is a lot of repetition. Remember that individual players seldom pass the ball 10 times in a row or make a dozen tackles. As stated above the repetitive skill of rugby is decision making. This means that, once a degree of competency can be achieved when performing a skill it must be integrated into a game situation. If you want greater repetition of a skill vary the context of the game so that this occurs.

Increase the intensity by having sufficient gear, balls, cones, hit shields, tackle bags , etc., so that players are not waiting for their turn for a period of time that is not greater than the recovery time they need. Players at the top level may do a skill for 5-10 minutes without a rest period.

Use tactical performance goals and KPI’s. These can be used for the team, the back and forward units and the individual players. These explain exactly what you want the players to do and they provide the basis for a post match review. They provide the basis for a post game review and, if there is a difference between the coach’s score and that of the players this can be the basis a review of the team’s performance.

Practice plan headings:

All these headings need not be used and new headings can be included:

• Administration.
• Warm-up – include skills.
• Individual skills.
• Mini-unit skills.
• Unit skills.
• Team Run.
• Warm down.
• Administration.

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