Rugby Coaching

[Inside Shoulder]

I dont think thats a good idea at any level unless it relates to, say, not turning up for a team photo 'cos you've been out on the turps.....

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Code of Conduct for Coaches

COACH’S CODE OF CONDUCT
1. You have responsibility for your team and its supporters. EXERCISE IT.
2. Be reasonable in your demands on the young players’ time, energy and enthusiasm. Remember that they have other interests and demands on their time.
3. Teach your players that laws of the game are mutual agreements that no one should evade or break.
4. Ensure that all players get a game. The ‘just average’ players need and deserve equal time.
5. Remember that young people play for fun and enjoyment and that winning is only part of it. Never ridicule or yell at the players for making mistakes or losing a game.
6. The scheduling and length of practise times and games should take into consideration the maturity level of the players.
7. Develop team respect for the ability of opponents, as well as for the judgement of referees and opposing coaches.
8. Follow the advice of a doctor in determining when an injured player is ready to play again.
9. Remember that young people need a coach they can respect. Be generous with your praise when it is deserved and set a good example.
10. Make a personal commitment to keep yourself informed on sound coaching principles and the principles of growth and development of young people.
11. Encourage young people to develop basic skills and avoid over-specialisation in positional play during their formative years.
12. Create opportunities to teach sportsmanship, just as you would in teaching the basic skills.
13. Ensure that efforts for both skill improvement and good sportsmanship are rewarded by praise.
14. Remember that players are also students so be reasonable in your demands on their energy and enthusiasm.
15. Ensure that skill learning and free play activities have priority over highly structured competitions for very young people.
16. INSIST ON FAIR PLAY, do not tolerate foul play, fighting, or foul language. Be prepared to take off an offending player.
17. Discourage excessive talk on the pitch.
18. INSIST on a disciplined approach by players and mean what you say.
19. Set a good example by personal good behaviour.
________________________

Adapted from "Fair Play Codes for Children in Sport" by the National Task Force on Children's Play Canadian Council on Children and Youth.

This has been used previously by SJRU as a code of conduct for coaches.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

NSW JRU Code of Conduct

2. CODE OF CONDUCT - COACH
i Actively discourage foul play, unsportsmanlike behaviour, dissent or querying of referee decisions by players or coaching staff during games.
ii Seek to maximise the participation and enjoyment for all players regardless of ability; avoid the tendency to over-use a talented player; treat all players as equals, regardless of their talent.
iii Show concern and caution towards all sick and injured players. Follow the advice of a physician and/or sports trainer to the letter when determining when an injured player is ready to recommence training or playing.
iv Teach players that an honest effort and competing to the best of their ability is as important as victory.
v Maintain appropriate, professional relationships with players at all times.
vi Maintain a thorough knowledge of the laws of the game and keep abreast of current coaching methods; maintain or improve your current accreditation level.
vii Always consider the health, safety and welfare of the players.
viii Teach young players to realise that there is a big gap between their play and the professional game; do not coach them as if they are professionals.
ix Ensure that your coaching reflects the level of the competition being played; do not be a "winner-at-aII-costs" coach.
x As coach, conduct yourself at all times in a manner, and in all situations, that shows leadership, respect for the game of Rugby Union and respect for all those that are involved in the game - the players, officials, the fans, the parents, the referees and the media.
xi Encourage your team to form a tunnel for your opposition at the conclusion of every game.
xii Seek to shake hands with the referee and opposition coach at the conclusion of every game.

********************************
The NSWJRU Code of Conduct is to be used in conjunction with the ARU Code of Conduct which can be found on the NSWJRU website www.nswjru.rugbynet.c0m.au

 

[Set piece magic]

What's the best way to teach a bunch of juniors how to tackle when they are... weak? Teaching 14 year olds.

 

[Ruggo]

What's the best way to teach a bunch of juniors how to tackle when they are... weak? Teaching 14 year olds.

You have got to get their self confidence up, getting over the fear of contact. I recon it is one of the best parts of junior coaching.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

2 things: you teach them to always take the inside shoulder - always show an opponent only one way to go; you teach them to always try to finish on top of the tackle. If you combine these 2 things they never have to make a fully head on tackle and they reduce the risk of someone bigger falling on top of them.

 

[teach]

What's the best way to teach a bunch of juniors how to tackle when they are... weak? Teaching 14 year olds.

Pair them up. Each pair stands 5m apart. Tackler on his knees. Player with ball walks towards player and is tackled. Ball carrier alternates left and right side of tackler. Tackled player learns to fall and place the ball. Repeat 5 times each side. Swap over. Gradually increase speed, then have tacklers in crouch at start.
This covers two requirements. Tackler learns the cheek on cheek rule (tacklers cheek must contact arse cheek of ball carrier) so no risk of knees to head. Ball carriers must learn to place the ball back each time.

Try this.

 

[teach]

Some of my thoughts on the Code of Conduct for Coaches

COACH’S CODE OF CONDUCT
1. You have responsibility for your team and its supporters. EXERCISE IT.
If Parents are going nuts on the sideline and abusing the ref and opposition. Tell them it is not acceptable. If they keep it up, take their son off the field and tell him to tell Mum to calm down.

2. Be reasonable in your demands on the young players’ time, energy and enthusiasm. Remember that they have other interests and demands on their time.
They are only kids. 2 hours twice a week is plenty, Don't make tuesday training a massive fitness session. Disguise fitness by doing heaps of ball handling drills.
2a. Make sure you know a variety of drills so they don't get bored.

4. Ensure that all players get a game. The ‘just average’ players need and deserve equal time.
Everyone in my team is guarranteed half a game at least (1st half or second half" 1st quarter, 2nd quarter etc). But only if they have attended all trainings. Non attendance at practise without a good excuse means they get as much game time as I feel like giving them. Semis and Finals it is the best team on, and the reserve bench may not all get on. They know that at the start of the season and fight for a place in the starting lineup.
Some talented players will skip training due to a belief they are god's gift to your team. Stop that sort of nonsense first time. Bench them. If the boys know you don;t tolerate prima donnas, believe me they will appreciate it.


5. Remember that young people play for fun and enjoyment and that winning is only part of it. Never ridicule or yell at the players for making mistakes or losing a game. If you are getting an absolute thrashing, or you know one is coming. Make it a chance for personal bests. i.e. best tackles, best turnover.


8. Follow the advice of a doctor in determining when an injured player is ready to play again.
The boys see me limp at trainings after years of playing on half healed sprains leaving me with weak ankles. Don't wreck a growing kid.

10. Make a personal commitment to keep yourself informed on sound coaching principles and the principles of growth and development of young people.

11. Encourage young people to develop basic skills and avoid over-specialisation in positional play during their formative years.
All my team members are required to cover at least 2 positions. e.g. 9/10, 10/12, 14/15, 5/6, 1/3
At my school, our most recent All Black played 1/2 back thru the grades, now plays for ABs on wing and Super 15 everywhere (Ben Smith).

15. Ensure that skill learning and free play activities have priority over highly structured competitions for very young people.
Make training a game. Bring a competitive element into the trainings.

16. INSIST ON FAIR PLAY, do not tolerate foul play, fighting, or foul language. Be prepared to take off an offending player.
If a player swears at a ref. he is off and can get changed immediately. referees are a vital part of the game. They take a lot of shit. Get a reputation as a team that is well mannered and polite and you will be surprised at how oftern 50/50 calls go your way.

 

[EVERYFWDTHINKTHEYREA6OR7]

What's the best way to teach a bunch of juniors how to tackle when they are... weak? Teaching 14 year olds.

I like the 'television tactic' have players form 'L's with their hands similar to when arty types are lining up a potential photograph. Have them work on just tagging around the hips and ensure that they are focusing on the area. Gradually build them up till they are following through with their shoulder.

 

[Rob42]

Some of my thoughts on the Code of Conduct for Coaches

...

Teach, spot on. My son has just completed his season in Under 8s, and having a great coach has meant a great season for all concerned - even if the scoreboard would disagree. He's learning to play the game in the right spirit, and learning those important skills like tackling the right way first time.

 

[dobduff11]

What's the best way to teach a bunch of juniors how to tackle when they are... weak? Teaching 14 year olds.

Make them watch a hits video before you go out onto the field! Also take down one of the bigger boys to show how easy it is to tackle when they are that age.

I was a bit of a wet boy when it came to tackling when I was around 10, but have since relished the contact. As nice as those tackling on your knees tutorials are for technique they provide fuck all for aggressiveness. Get them into contact early in the session, not one-on-one for the first drill otherwise they shit themselves.

Once they get a bit dirty, then do a one on one drill in a 4 by 4 square. Both stand in a corner and the attacker has to score across the line. Attitude is more important than technique imo, technique will be honed over several years but they need to up for a hit at all times.

 

[Running Rugby]

The big keys to teaching tackling are confidence and technique and each one has close ties to the other. Instilling confidence is a difficult task and often requires different actions for different kids. In regards to techniques once the safety basics of head and shoulder position are taught the most important thing is tracking. Tracking is about getting the feet in the right position to make the tackle. Too much distance the tackle will be missed- too close the weaker kids will get pushed off. There are some great tracking drills out there and they have the added incentive of improving confidence as they can be done with limited contact in the beginning. If anybody is interested I will post some links and drills for tracking prior to the tackle.

 

[Ruggo]

Some of my thoughts on the Code of Conduct for Coaches

COACH’S CODE OF CONDUCT
1. You have responsibility for your team and its supporters. EXERCISE IT.
If Parents are going nuts on the sideline and abusing the ref and opposition. Tell them it is not acceptable. If they keep it up, take their son off the field and tell him to tell Mum to calm down.

.

I hit the agree button on your post but this one is tricky. Most of the time, the biggest victim of the arsehole parent is the child themselves. The age of the child has a lot to to do with the best course of action in this situation but I prefer to deal with the parent myself and not burden the player further. The way I look at it is that they are already the meat in the sandwich so to speak. Given the arshole parent has already proven to be a trouble maker I prefer to do it in the presense of a witness for my own protection.

I would also say your responsibility is a bit broader and is to the game in general. This is easy to say as the rugby community I am involved in is only small and I can only speak from my own situation but keeping good relations with opposition coaches is also good protocol as between us we have the conduct of both sides supporters under control. We are all there for the same reason and all share the same vested interest in keeping it clean.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

On line Coaching Resources

http://www.80minutes.co.uk/uploads/files/contact_drill.pdf

Here is a web site, I have just been put onto. Too early to tell how good the material is.

I am also on the mailing list of Dan Cottrell (dan@rugby-coach.com). Website http://www.rugby-coach.com/

This is a professional site and contains lots of useful information, if you are prepared to pay. Long Pockets Jarse has not paid for any material. I get his regular emails as part of "membership" of Better Rugby Coaching. Try clicking on here http://www.betterrugbycoaching.com/ to become a subscriber/Member of "Better Rugby Coaching".

There is plenty of free info in the Better Rugby Coaching emails, and clever marketing to try to get you to dig into your pockets for paid material.

IMHO, there is more than enough free resources from ARU available on the net for the basic coach. I will try and post a link to this soon.

I recall browsing on the Lords of Darkness's website a few years back, and seem to recall that I thought they had some good material for coaches on there. That was a long time ago. Perhaps some of our NZ based readers could comment?

 

[EVERYFWDTHINKTHEYREA6OR7]

Pair them up. Each pair stands 5m apart. Tackler on his knees. Player with ball walks towards player and is tackled. Ball carrier alternates left and right side of tackler. Tackled player learns to fall and place the ball. Repeat 5 times each side. Swap over. Gradually increase speed, then have tacklers in crouch at start.
This covers two requirements. Tackler learns the cheek on cheek rule (tacklers cheek must contact arse cheek of ball carrier) so no risk of knees to head. Ball carriers must learn to place the ball back each time.

Try this.

Whilst i learnt by this method i think this one is a little dated. When teenagers muck around as they do and bicker as they do this method i have found creates issues. Had one of the boys injured quite badly when he hyperextended as he went backwards. I personally feel it is better to use methods that are more akin to how we work in a game.

This one is great however for ages groups up to around the 12 yo mark.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

I hit the agree button on your post but this one is tricky. Most of the time, the biggest victim of the arsehole parent is the child themselves. The age of the child has a lot to to do with the best course of action in this situation but I prefer to deal with the parent myself and not burden the player further. The way I look at it is that they are already the meat in the sandwich so to speak. Given the arshole parent has already proven to be a trouble maker I prefer to do it in the presense of a witness for my own protection.

I would also say your responsibility is a bit broader and is to the game in general. This is easy to say as the rugby community I am involved in is only small and I can only speak from my own situation but keeping good relations with opposition coaches is also good protocol as between us we have the conduct of both sides supporters under control. We are all there for the same reason and all share the same vested interest in keeping it clean.

I likewise agree with Teach and Ruggo's basic philosophy on the role of the coach, and how to deal with difficult parents.

In the shadow of the Jarse Footprints, I see far too many Coaches at Junior Village Club and School Level where it is all about them and WINNING. Their role of mentoring their charges in sportsmanship and Heaven's Game culture often takes a back seat.

One of my pet gripes is that the relatively speaking "big boy" is far too often used as a battering ram in the younger ages. We do not have enough numbers to play a viable weight for age competition, and that is a seperate emotionally charged topic.

In my observation, the coaches tend not encourage these kids to practice and learn aspects of finesse (swerve, draw and pass, step, running for the gap etc) because they are try scoring match winners when they take the Jonah Lomu/Mike Catt route to the try line. By the time that the previously smaller "speed bump" kids catch up in skills, tackle technique and confidence, and start being able to tackle the previous "Supermen" players, it can take a very long time for the "Supermen" to unlearn the Jonah Lomu/Mike Catt lines, and develop some rugby finesse. Sometimes it is too late.

I reckon that Coaches fail their duty when they do not teach rugby finesse to the, relatively speaking, bigger boys.

Another observation is that too much of the Coaches time is taken up educating Parents about sportsmanship and Rugby culture.

 

[Ruggo]

Good point about the big kid Hugh. I like getting the kids thinking for themselves in how they will handle the big kid. They know they can't bring him down one on one so they have to start working as a team and I find it good that they brainstorm as a team to deal with him/her. I find it very inclusive for the kids and the depth of thought in their ideas is often impressive.

The other side of the coin is when you have the big kid on your side and you have to go that little extra to get him to be a team player.

The other thing I find with junior coaching is getting the parents involved as much as possible. Whether it be helping at training, tacking photos on game day, washing the jerseys or just bring the oranges.

 

[teach]

Make them watch a hits video before you go out onto the field! Also take down one of the bigger boys to show how easy it is to tackle when they are that age.

I was a bit of a wet boy when it came to tackling when I was around 10, but have since relished the contact. As nice as those tackling on your knees tutorials are for technique they provide fuck all for aggressiveness. Get them into contact early in the session, not one-on-one for the first drill otherwise they shit themselves.

Once they get a bit dirty, then do a one on one drill in a 4 by 4 square. Both stand in a corner and the attacker has to score across the line. Attitude is more important than technique imo, technique will be honed over several years but they need to up for a hit at all times.

Aggression is all good but they have to learn the basics first! The drill I described is ten minutes or so, not a whole season! It would be bloody stupid to have them going full on without some form of logical progression. Nothing wrong with starting slow and building up. I guarrantee you if a kid collects a knee to the side of the head, they will not tackle low again, without a lot of work. If you do it properly at the beginning, they will be confident tacklers. By the end of the practise, the boys will be running at each other.

Later on we create situations where there are 2 on 1, 2 on 2, 3 on 2, 2 on 3 and so on. Players have to quickly make decision on who to tackle, while the ball carriers have to decide to try and offload or take the ball to ground and so on. Ball carriers and support players have to try and create overlaps. One of my top flankers did his AC joint during one of the competitive tackle drills, but it happens. Of our 11 teams this year, we had 2 AC joints and a medial ligament, all due to tackling practise.

But you have to start slow. Especially if you are coaching U14 C, with the leftovers are the superstars have been taken by the A's.

 

[teach]

The other thing I find with junior coaching is getting the parents involved as much as possible. Whether it be helping at training, tacking photos on game day, washing the jerseys or just bring the oranges.

When the kids get to high school, the parents seem to back off, content to let teachers do it all, and I mean all sports, not just rugby. Get them involved, even if it is to help ice injured players, or hold tackle bags. A lot of dads would love to help out but feel they are not needed. I had a dad video all our games so the boys could sit in my room at lunchtimes and watch themselves. We even made a couple of Youtube video compilations out of it.

 

[dobduff11]

Aggression is all good but they have to learn the basics first! The drill I described is ten minutes or so, not a whole season! It would be bloody stupid to have them going full on without some form of logical progression. Nothing wrong with starting slow and building up. I guarrantee you if a kid collects a knee to the side of the head, they will not tackle low again, without a lot of work. If you do it properly at the beginning, they will be confident tacklers. By the end of the practise, the boys will be running at each other...But you have to start slow

Fair enough Teach, I agree that they have to know the basics first otherwise its dangerous.

I still think tackling is more of a mental skill than technical though. Ive never really seen the point of those tackle bag things either (the sausage ones) they don't even encourage good technique because you cant wrap your arms around them.

You can still identify the schoolboy "big kids" in adult rugby, shocking hands!