Coaching Youth Rugby E-Book

Keith Richardson

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 246

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Written by an experienced rugby coach, Coaching Youth Rugby is an essential guide for all coaches, parents and teachers. This one-stop practical resource will give a new coach everything they need to deliver fun, dynamic, player-centred practice sessions and guidance on how to run a team. Coaches at all levels of the game will find material and ideas aimed at helping them to formulate simple strategies to suit their level of player ability. Contents include: practical small-team games and drills, enabling coaches to run active and fun sessions for young players; ideas for teaching fundamental rugby skills, from passing and handling to tackling, kicking, scrum and lineout; coaching theories explained in an uncomplicated and easy-to-understand manner.With field-tested, age-specific information to help you learn how to communicate with players, parents, other coaches and officials, Coaching Youth Rugby will help you manage your team on match days and provide measures for ensuring player safety. Includes full details on the new RFU Continuum. A one-stop practical resource that is fully illustrated with 60 colour photographs and 100 diagrams.

Leseprobe

COACHING YOUTHRUGBY

An Essential Guide forCoaches, Parents and Teachers

Keith Richardson

First published in 2014 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2014

© Keith Richardson 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 612 3

AcknowledgementsThank you to the following for their help and support in the preparation of this book: Martin Kimber, Wycliffe College; Julian Brammer, Haileybury; Dave Spencer, Stroud Rugby Club; Mark Nicholson, Marling School; Hartpury College Rugby Club; Simon Lane, Gloucester Rugby; Ian Smith, RFU L4 coach; Tom Burwell.

NoteThroughout this book, the pronoun ‘he’ has been used for the sake of convenience. However, the author and publishers would like to point out that all the activities in this book are equally applicable to both male and female players.

CONTENTS

Preface

Key to the Symbols Used in this Book

Introduction: Let the Game be the Teacher

  1    The Youth Rugby Coach

  2    Making Practices Fun and Practical

  3    Tag Rugby

  4    Coaching after Tag Rugby

  5    Handling Skills

  6    Developing and Improving Handling Skills

  7    Introducing Rugby with Contact

  8    The Scrum

  9    The Line-out

10    Kicking

11    Defence

12    Coaching on Match Day

Appendix: The New Rules for U7, U8, U9 and U11

Index

PREFACE

Coaching Youth Rugby serves as a guide for those just starting out coaching young rugby players, as well as seasoned coaches who are dealing with players after non-contact rugby. In addition to helping teach fundamental rugby skills and plan enjoyable coaching sessions, Coaching Youth Rugby presents field-tested, age-specific coaching information to help coaches learn how to communicate with players, parents, other coaches and officials. It will also teach coaches how to manage their team on match days, including measures to provide for safety and for administering basic first aid.

Whatever their experience or aspirations, this book will enable readers to fulfil the responsibility of all youth, age group and adult rugby coaches: to nurture and develop the young athletes who are the future of rugby, and to develop sound coaching knowledge for when those young players develop.

INTRODUCTION: LET THE GAME BE THE TEACHER

‘We’ll soon coach that out of him!’

I was once helping out at a coaching holiday course, and a game of touch was going on with one group – and we all (the coaches, anyway) simply had to stop what we were doing to watch what was unfolding before our eyes. One of the young players was dazzling – he simply hypnotized the opposition, and continually made breaks, then fed his team with exquisite passes. It was a master class in what the running game was all about – and then a fellow coach next to me came out with the immortal ‘We’ll soon coach that out of him!’

This coach was not, however, a disciple of contact rugby – of grinding, forward-dominated rugby that is developed from drills-based coaching; he was, and is, an exponent of attacking with ball in hand, and he is very gifted in developing and nurturing players’ running, handling and passing skills. Unfortunately he might have put his finger on a serious problem in how rugby is introduced and coached in the early stages.

When I was a young teacher I watched two Welsh schoolmasters ‘introduce’ young players to rugby. The organization was superb, and the technical knowledge imparted was impressive, and the boys soon found out all about the skill of passing this oddly shaped ball. But they were sitting down in very strictly controlled lines of four, and it took forever for the teachers to let them run and handle – and even then, the activity was constantly stopping so that a technical point could be made by Sir(s).

This may not have put the pupils off the game forever, but it must have served to imprint on their early awareness that the game is all about organization, straight lines and instruction – when actually it isn’t. Even the best organized drill session tends to come to a shuddering halt when some poor player passes badly and/or drops the ball – and the majority are then waiting around again instead of being active.

Another coaching memory still makes me cringe: I, a coach with a fair amount of experience of coaching at the top end of the game, had been invited to take part in a rugby day for very young players, and the eager-eyed boys and girls were raring to go – until yours truly started. I had planned a handling session to beat all handling sessions, but unfortunately the little dears did not know what I was talking about, and gave me withering looks of incomprehension and pity.

My handling plan was clearly as much use as a chocolate teapot, and this was obvious after about two minutes – with fifty-eight to go! The only solution was to scrap the considered Plan A and somehow think of a Plan B very quickly. The answer was a very simple game of modified touch where you can pass in any direction. The rules were made up as we went along, and I suddenly saw the light: young players want to play games, and the coach can facilitate this desire and get the basics of the game across if and when the technical aspect is called for.

Hopefully the young players remembered the coaching advice that I tried to add to the little game with encouraging comments instead of the first aborted attempt at getting too complex a drill arranged – but it did teach me a valuable lesson. And I am fairly sure that many coaches of young players will empathize with this. We do enjoy drills and the coaching of specific skills with lots of detail and precision, possibly because such a session is relatively easy to set up and the elements that go wrong are generally predictable. But when do coaches concentrate on game understanding and players’ flair and intuitive skills?

It is very easy to coach out flair and intuition, yet no coach will ever deliberately try to achieve such a negative result. However, many well-meaning coaches might never plan the sort of session that could develop these rich skills – because the type of session that may let them develop can go very badly wrong.

Unfortunately the package of drills is safe, predictable and manageable, and might, at first glance, seem to be doing a very well organized job. The session that is full of small games to develop understanding does not have the safety net of certainty and/or predictability – but when the coach develops the confidence to unleash his players into such sessions, they can benefit enormously. Such games will allow them to explore the possibilities and opportunities with a rugby ball, and they will become more quickly aware of the required skills and their own capabilities.

This book aims to offer advice on how and why, as well as offering drills and practices; it suggests that newcomers to the game might learn more from games for understanding than they ever will through a package of drills. Some of it you probably follow anyway, but many ‘coaches’ out there are parents who are doing the job simply because their child is playing and there are no other coaches around to run the sessions. These volunteers deserve a medal, but it is vital that these same people have a basic understanding of the rudiments of the game alongside a sensible philosophy on what they are trying to achieve, and how they can best make a positive contribution.

If you have coached and/or you are a schoolteacher, you are used to organizing sessions and lessons for a high-spirited group who want action. But the tragedy is that more action can lead to more disruption and chaos if the exuberance is not managed – and that is perhaps why so many players, and children especially, learn through repetitive drills alone.

There are three distinct phases in the rugby coaching and playing cycle:

•

The introduction of young beginners to the game, where there is no contact and the children are encouraged to play and learn through small team activities and games

•

Tag rugby, where there is still no contact but the game starts to resemble the full game in attacking and defensive shape, the direction of the game and handling skills

•

The game of rugby with contact in scrums, lineout, tackling, rucks, mauls and kicking

At all levels of coaching, how you get the message across is as important as the content of your sessions, and if a young player has a discouraging experience in the introduction to the game, he may not be around for the later stages.

So the coach of the early learners has a tremendous responsibility. If the introductory phases are fun and constructive, and if they give the children a sense of purpose and improvement, those young players will learn the basics of handling, controlling space, playing in a team, and how to score and defend within the rules that have been laid down. They will probably be encouraged to go on to the next phase and stick with the game.

There is little need for any formal coaching of skills in the early days, although a knowledge of the rudimentary basics of the game can help when planning what the activities and small games are meant to cover. It also helps if the coach understands those basics so that constructive advice, however basic, can be offered to the players.

Coaching Youth Rugby starts with coaching for beginners in mind in the early parts, develops into Tag Rugby, and then into coaching specific skills.

Positions (and Numbering) on the Pitch

15.    Full back (FB)

14.    Right wing (RW)

13.    Centre (usually outside) (C)

12.    Centre (usually inside) (C)

11.    Left wing (LW)

10.    Fly half (FH)

9.      Scrum half (9)

1.      Loose-head prop (LH)

2.      Hooker (H)

3.      Tight head prop (TH)

4.      Lock (usually front jumper)

5.      Lock (usually middle jumper)

6.      Blindside flanker (BS)

7.      Openside flanker (OS)

8.      Number 8 (8)

CHAPTER 1

THE YOUTH RUGBY COACH

If you are the coach in charge of any group of young players you really do need to sit down with your colleagues well before you start. Some, perhaps all of you, may have no rugby background but are willing to help, because without you, the young people may not get to learn the game simply because nobody else can be found to run the sessions.

Do not let lack of rugby-playing experience put you off. There are various strategies that you can adopt so that you give the children meaningful exercise whilst they absorb the rudiments of a very complex game. Ask yourselves the straightforward question: ‘Why are we taking on this coaching?’

There are many answers, but the children who will be learning the game ought to be at the top of this list. If the coach’s ego initiates too many references to himself as coach, perhaps alarm bells should start ringing. Surely the object of the exercise will be to give a group of young people some meaningful physical exercise within forms or adaptations of rugby football.

If the players are total newcomers to the game, they will not need too much technical knowledge; being comfortable in handling the oddly shaped ball, learning catching and passing skills, and developing awareness of space, and how to create it, might be quite enough to aim for.

Nor will the coach require too much technical rugby knowledge, and might achieve these objectives with no more than some serious thought and inventiveness on how to run small games. All he will need, once the games are planned before the session, is a rudimentary ‘list’ of skills that might be referred to once the game(s) starts.

If the subjects are already conversant with the rudiments of the game, their needs will differ slightly, but they need not be overloaded with technicalities. They may think they are ready for a ‘proper’ game of rugby because they have watched it live or on television, but the reality is that the whole game will be beyond them.

However, they will still be able to enjoy small-sided games where the rules can evolve and change each week; you do not have to play rugby on a proper pitch to develop many of the basic skills, but you will need to plan what you are going to do each session, and have a checklist of the basic shape of that session with rough times on each activity, plus a list of the equipment you will require, and a shortlist of the key points that you want to get across to your subjects.

Do not assume that you will remember everything that you covered, so a short written summary of the session will help greatly. You can also keep brief records of what worked and what didn’t – and this information might help in the future.

A diary of your sessions and the key points on how they went could prove immensely valuable. It is certainly not a sign of weakness if you keep this brief record of what you did in each session, with a short analysis of what worked and what clearly did not. Do refer to this document, and always be on the lookout for what you see other coaches doing; if it seems to work it may be worth recording so that you can use it later.

What are Realistic Aims and Objectives?

You will probably overestimate what you might achieve in the early stages and before you ever start coaching the young players – you will merely be human if you dream of coaching future international players. However, the percentages are firmly against you in this, and you will, in all likelihood, be dealing with a cross-section of ability, ranging from pretty poor to quite good. Nevertheless the subjects are very young, and occasionally one or more might appear to be outstanding – but then again, it might be the most unlikely specimen who develops later in life, so do not be fooled by the superiority of the early physical developer. By all means extend the ‘star’ performer by asking a great deal of him, but never write off anyone.

If you can get your charges into an enjoyable, active environment where they can learn and develop handling (catching and passing), space awareness, evasion, how best to score, and how to get into some form of defence to fit in with the rules of the game you play, you will have done exceptionally well. Never assume that these seemingly elementary skills mean that your sessions will not be very good: when the basics are identified and practised and encouraged in small team games, a great deal will have been achieved. If, however, you start by aiming for too much advanced skill work, the ensuing result will probably be a failure. Start with realistic aims and expectations, and never be afraid to discuss the issue with other coaches who have been through the same thing.

If your young players learn to appreciate teamwork and how groups can work together in both attack and defence, you will have done very well. If you can enter the stratosphere and get your charges to appreciate that rugby is an ever-changing game where it is difficult to predict what is going to happen, you are flying; encourage these players to react to the constant change, and you will deserve a coaching medal.

The early introduction to rugby does not require the scissors, missmoves, dummies and sidesteps to be taught. If you run the right sort of game, these skills might appear quite naturally. However you, the coach, have to spot when somebody is naturally producing skill, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing examples to the rest of the group’s attention and running through the skill with a demonstration by the player(s) involved – or just by referring to it at a stoppage. Your players may take skill/s on board far more quickly if they see their peers produce it/them than they might if it is hammered home in a set of drills.

At whatever level you are coaching, do look out for the player who can score. There are many different body types in most teams, but a genuine try scorer will stick out immediately. He may not need as much assistance or encouragement as the rest, but he is a valuable commodity, and he will probably continue to be a scorer as he progresses in the game.

But a word of caution: although this player may well be far better than the rest, you do not want them to resent his skills if he starts to dominate. If you do have one player who is that good, try to encourage him to take satisfaction from making a break and playing another player into the game with a good pass. Let him be your playmaker, and do not be afraid to discuss with him why you do not want him to score all the time; there are other skills that he can improve, and you both know that he could have scored a hatful of tries if you had not encouraged him to make a hatful of scoring opportunities for the rest. However, he might need reassurance after every session that your ‘pact’ still exists and that you were aware throughout that he was doing exactly what you asked him to do when he was playing others into the game.

Your Role as a Coach of Young Players

Right from the start of your career in coaching young players, you need to determine why you are there and what your role is. The following is certainly not proscriptive, but it may offer a framework on which to build your coaching sessions.

You have to accept the responsibility for some or all of the following areas, which should be on any checklist of categories to improve through your plans.

•

Social development

using team games, skills that require cooperation between players, and encouraging a sense of fair play (right and wrong)

•

Mental development,

where young players improve in confidence and self-esteem, while appreciating that others may be very different in ability and performance

•

Physical development

, with plenty of healthy exercise and physical challenges

•

Skill development

, where

all

players improve their performance levels

•

Child welfare

You also have to ensure that you give serious thought to your other responsibilities, which concern the following:

•

Planning and running a safe, enjoyable and active session

•

Understanding, even at a rudimentary level, what and how to coach within the activity or game

•

Appreciating how game sense among young players will be best developed – and how to recognize it and comment on it when it is shown

•

Having a knowledge of the rules of any game that you play

•

Being able to referee that game competently and safely

Do plan each and every session so that you have contingency plans if something goes wrong. You will rarely get the precise numbers that you are expecting, so make sure that you have considered what to do with fewer players. At the head of your list and at the forefront of your planning should be a simple template that is used widely by RFU (Rugby Football Union) coaches, embodied in the acronym APES:

A ctive

P urposeful

E njoyable

S afe

Communicating as a Coach

When coaching young players, it is as well to start off by acknowledging that, for example, you are physically vast and your voice is extremely loud; you may also use a piercing whistle to bring order to proceedings, and your young players will feel very small and threatened if you lose your temper and shout and/or whistle too stridently.

Try to think of coaching from their perspective, and start off by trying hard to modulate your voice. This is far from easy, and the decibels tend to rise as any session develops – but when you are constantly loud the players will end up by hearing your noise but without listening to what you are saying. And do you really need a whistle? Try running your session by voice alone: it is hard work, but it may prove to you that you do not need the blast of the whistle every time you want to announce something. Try to develop the skill of using the voice, whilst keeping the whistle as an aid in refereeing a game. By doing this, the whistle becomes very important and all activity stops when it is blown.

Then try to get down to the youngsters in a physical sense: instead of preaching downwards, why not kneel or crouch when you are offering advice or information? It does not take long, but you will be speaking to the players at their height level and you will not be regarded as some alien from the heavens.

When you are closer to their level, try hard to speak in a normal conversational tone. If you are excited, the message will probably be lost – especially if you are loud as well. Develop a habit among the group that there is absolute silence when the game stops for the coach to intervene, then you and any players who need to comment can do so in a way that allows the message to get across. If there is constant movement and chatter, you will never get the information to an individual or to the group.

There should never be an occasion when you swear, curse or blaspheme – apart from under your breath and so quietly that nobody hears it. You may be sorely tempted, but youngsters need positive examples. If you set the wrong tone it may be difficult later if you need to reprimand a player for something that you may have been guilty of on a previous occasion.

By the same token, the players must be guided from the first session (and for ever) in aspects of their behaviour: swearing, spitting, moaning about other players, cheating and not being able to accept refereeing decisions have to be taboo. You will have problems but you must not be afraid to be firm: lose this one and the game is not worth coaching anyway. Once you have started coaching young players, whether you like it or not, you are their mentor in more ways than just learning rugby: their behaviour is an important role that you have taken on. An acceptable code of behaviour from a noisy, lively group of children will not just happen because you announce once that this is what is required: you must be prepared to work hard at it, and never give up on what you demand.

This may sound too much like a schoolteacher, but you have to accept some form of moral responsibility when you take on these young players. They will require guidance on standards of kit, and you will have to be a good role model: for example, if you are untidy, they will have an automatic excuse to turn up in an untidy and dirty manner.

And start off by having a duty rota for pre-session and post-session. They need the responsibility of getting the equipment ready and then having it carried to the pitch – and they are learning valuable life skills when they have to count the balls at the end of the session and, if need be, go to look for any that are lost. These things will not simply happen, but you can make them part of your team’s culture, and the players will be the better for it. It isn’t all about playing rugby.

Coaches must agree that they will never be seen to disagree with any other coach, opponent, parent, supporter or referee. This may prove almost impossible under severe provocation, but you set the standards and you may have to bite your tongue more than once to restrain yourself. However, it has to be done and it must be part of your coaching charter.

Hopefully your players will be manageable, and the basket will not have too many bad apples. But things will go wrong, however moderate, restrained, competent and organized you are, so why not have a set of club regulations – even if they are no more than guidelines? You do not need precise punishments for precise ‘crimes’ but it may help you to know that there is a procedure for dealing with difficult cases, which will hopefully be few and far between.

Most ‘incidents’ will be spur-of-the-moment things and can be dealt with without a committee meeting, but if you are faced with somebody who simply cannot accept the few disciplines of acceptable behaviour, that player has to know that there is a system to deal with him. A quick meeting between the culprit, yourself and another ‘outside’ coach may afford a bit of gravitas to the situation, and do not shirk from telling the player precisely why he is presenting problems. He may swear incessantly at home and/or spitting may be common – but both are frowned upon at the rugby sessions. He will not reform overnight so you probably need to try to accept gradual improvement as the way forward.

If a player really does keep on ruining the sessions for the other players, no system on earth will lead to reform and you need to get rid of him with an explanation of why you have had to take this step. Again, this will be best carried out by yourself and another coach, and you may need to explain to parents why you acted thus.

Luckily these incidents and tough cases will be rare, and your players will conform to sensible rules; if they cannot develop this part of their game, rugby is a poor choice of sport because they will find in later life that the referee has vast power, and an unwillingness to accept his interpretation of law will quickly result in early dismissal.

When you begin your coaching, early communication with your fellow coaches and players might save some difficult incidents later. If you and your colleagues have explained why there is a code of conduct and precisely what it is, the outcome may be far better than if you had explained nothing and simply dealt with misconduct as it occurred.

Once you start with a group, however young, you might consider bringing them in on what that group should demand on standards of behaviour. An agreement from them (however much you tweak it the way you wish) will have more force than simple announcements from coaches. So do spend a few minutes at regular intervals to get their thoughts on how certain aspects of their game and general behaviour have been going; it is all part of their development, and the majority will back you up in your aims if you give them the opportunity to speak.

At most stages of coaching and player development there will be parents around, and it is advisable to bring them in on what is acceptable behaviour as if they were part of the playing side. Some of them may not have a rugby background, and they may need to be reminded of the following code of behaviour:

•

Everybody – players, coaches, parents – is there to enjoy the activity. Spectators and parents need to understand that all the young players deserve coaching and playing time

•

Fair play is as important off the pitch as it is on the pitch

•

The referee must have total support, especially from supporters. It will be totally confusing for a youngster if there is audible discontent/disagreement on decisions from the touch-line

•

Encourage all players, and try to applaud the efforts of the opponents as well as those in your own side

•

Thank everybody involved at the end of the game, especially the referee and visiting players and coaches: without them there will be no game at all

Some of this may be difficult for a few parents, but it is a battle that has to be fought. One useful ploy is to have a spectators’ charter, whereby parents have a useful role to play. Try to get them involved in helping, even if it is just being a water-carrier. The more they absorb the ethos of the game and its social aspects, the more likely they are to have a positive impact for good. Get them on board!

Providing for Players’ Safety

The safety of your players must be of paramount importance. Already you will have undergone safety checks (the RFU Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) check, Regulation 21 (11–12)) to prove that you are not a threat to young people, so try to ensure that your coaching sessions are as rigorous in their planning for playing safety.

There will never be a foolproof and perfectly ‘safe’ sporting environment, but you can ensure that your sessions are as safe as is possible. This requires some thought and planning before the first session, and you should be aware at all times that you set the tone for what is safe practice.

•

You will have playing rules for the games. Make sure that the players know them, and that they do their best to follow them. They will change as the game develops, but they are the rules at that stage

•

All players must know your club’s basic safety rules before they begin the first session

•

Ask parents for information on any known medical complaint/problem their child has

before

you even start, and keep the information in a file for reference

•