Filed under: Dan Cottrell, Rugby Skills, Rugby Team Management, Rugby Training | Tags: All Blacks, Peter Bills, tries
Here is an excellent article by Peter Bills from International Rugby News about why the All Blacks are the best team the world, even if they haven’t won the World Cup in the professional era.
There are 25 rugby coaching points in here as well.
1) They’re smarter and have far more street-cred on the rugby field than any other nation.
2) They’re like sharks sniffing blood in the water. Show any weakness and they’ll pounce on it.
3) Other teams look for options on what to do during play. New Zealanders don’t need to look and think – they just act instinctively.
4) Just when you think they might be predictable, they’ll do the unexpected.
5) When an opponent gets isolated even for a moment, they’ll strike.
6) When they strike, they do so with lethal speed and commitment.
7) They scavenge ferociously for the loose ball.
8 ) They’re physically intense and fearsome. If you don’t match them in this respect, you have little chance.
9) The levels of expectation within New Zealand rugby circles are absolutely frightening, the highest in the world. When I asked coach Graham Henry, after he had led his team to another Tri-Nations triumph in September, (their fourth in a row) whether that meant the knives were now out of his back, he replied ‘No, but they might have been blunted for a while.’
10) Youngsters growing up in New Zealand dream of playing for the All Blacks. That remains the case today.
11) Their powers of concentration are much greater than most opponents.
12) Their support for the ball carrier is phenomenal, consistently the best.
13) They’re utterly ruthless in winning the ball, especially loose phase possession. Because they do it with such ferocity and intent, they secure it faster which means better quality possession for their backs.
14) They do the basics better than anyone else. These are inculcated from an early age.
15) There is an altogether greater physicality and intensity about the game in New Zealand. Their rugby men define them as a nation.
16) Their speed of recovery when they are in trouble is lightning fast.
17) To beat them, a side has to kick its goals and convert pressure and try scoring positions into points. Fail to do that, as Scotland were guilty of last weekend, and you have no chance.
18) They do what they have to do to stop any danger. That includes illegal play where needed.
19) The speed at which they do things on the field is usually so much greater than northern hemisphere teams manage.
20) There is a precision about their play which is the envy of most others.
21) They’re the best in the world at playing referees cleverly.
22) They push laws to the limit and never stop testing match officials. If they’re not picked up on them, they cheerfully transgress with regularity, a la their collapsed scrums against Scotland at Murrayfield last Saturday.
23) In Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith they have a highly experienced, smart coaching team. It is a trinity of talent.
24) A fear of failure is forever with them. It drives them on relentlessly.
25) The allure and value of the New Zealand jersey is priceless as a motivational tool. As former All Blacks hooker Anton Oliver says “If they ever sold part of that jersey to a commercial organisation and thereby diluted the uniqueness of the shirt, it would be the beginning of the end for the All Black legend, in my view.”
Filed under: Dan Cottrell, Rugby Coaching | Tags: coaching new players, rugby coaching u9s
Remember the time when you attended your first proper contact training session. You would have probably played “tackling” in the park or garden plenty of times, but the first session was special. Whether you were eight years of age or older, you would have felt a mix of apprehension, some fear, much excitement and a desire to get going.
Those feelings are probably mirrored when you first started coaching contact. But what do you cover first, in what depth and for how long?
These questions vex many coaches, experienced or not. In your first year of contact coaching there is a danger of expecting too much from the players and perhaps even too much from yourself. My experience of the first three months of contact coaching with youngsters who played tag the year before is this:
1. Expect some attrition of players. They may return, but it has become a different game with contact and they just may not want that anymore.
2. Don’t “fire up” the players in the way you would older players. They lose skill levels very quickly and are more likely to do damage to themselves.
3. Don’t teach the adult game. Concentrate on the very basic contact skills.
4. Players learn contact in games by playing small-sided games where they are gettting plenty of activity.
5. Don’t expect consistency! You don’t know what cereal they had on match day…
6. Be patient with skill acquisition. It can take months for the penny to drop.
The real challenge is modifying your vision of the game to match the age group you are dealing with. The shape of the game only comes from 11 and onwards. So there is no point in coaching plays, sophisticated ruck ball tactics (bridging for instance!) or defensive alignments other than a simple line defence.
Filed under: Dan Cottrell, ELVs, Rugby Training | Tags: Add new tag, Autumn series, coaching rugby, international rugby
Can we translate what we see on the TV in international games into meaningful outcomes for our own teams? The simple answer could be no. Especially if you are running an under 8s tag team on a Sunday.
However there are some pros and cons.
Pros of using international games for your coaching
Innovation
Sometimes international teams will use a move you have not seen before. With small modifications you can this same move for your team.
Inspiration
We all aspire to play for our country or even coach them, and though the moment may have passed many of us by, we can gain much from listening to how the international coaches talk about their teams.
Points of reference
Using international games as examples is an easy way of helping our players visualise what we mean. A particular tackle or defensive alignment means more if the players have seen it performed at the top level.
Cons of using international games for your coaching
Time
The international teams have so much more time to practise the moves you might see on the TV. You can never have this luxury, so you need to be careful what elements you want to reproduce.
Refereeing differences
The quality of referees at the top level is different. Techniques that work in an international game may not be acceptable at lower levels because the referees are looking at other priorities.
Quality
A brilliant move may only work because the teams have the strength, speed and skill to perform them. This also goes for some of the close quarter techniques in rucks. I would especially highlight “sealing” manoeuvres, because the top level players are enormously strong across the shoulders and neck. They can take up very low positions and be far safer from injury that less experienced players.
Filed under: Dan Cottrell, Rugby Coaching, Rugby Team Management | Tags: All Blacks, rugby strategy, Rugby Tactics, Steve Hansen, WRU
Alun Carter, the former Welsh international performance analyst, gives us an inside view on Steve Hansen when he was coaching Wales from 2002 to 2004.
Hansen, now the forwards coach for the All Blacks, took over from Graham Henry and saw Wales run some of the big sides close. His team almost beat the All Blacks in 2003 World Cup and arguably started the momentum for Mike Ruddock’s team to take the Grand Slam 2005.
Alun Carter’s interview is quite revealing on how coaches can influence a team for better and for worse.
Filed under: coaches in action pictures, Dan Cottrell | Tags: coach in a suit, enthusiasm
Coach, originally uploaded by k.menas.
Frank Graziano, coach of the Eastern Illinois University Rugby team, demonstrates rugby techniques to the team on Oct. 4, 2008. Eastern played Ball State University on Lakeview Rugby Field in Charleston, Ill. Eastern won 112-3.
Filed under: Dan Cottrell, Rugby Team Management | Tags: Autumn Internationals, IRFU, RFU, SRU, WRU
The Autumn Internationals will gives us a glimpse of the world’s best outside the World Cup arena and a chance to pick the best two XVs. With no American players (North or South) on display, we will have to ignore them for this exercise.
I will select my own world XV after this weekend, but the Lions on form and starting for their country this weekend would be:
15. Lee Bryne (Wales)
14. Sean Lamont (Scotland)
13. Brian O’Driscoll (Ireland)
12. Gavin Henson (Wales)
11. Shane Williams (Wales)
10. Danny Cipriani (England)
9. Danny Care (England)
1. Andrew Sheridan (England)
2. Jerry Flannery (Ireland)
3. Matt Stevens (England)
4. Paul O’Connell (Ireland)
5. Alun Wyn Jones (Wales)
6. Tom Croft (England)
7. Tom Rees (England)
8. Ryan Jones (Wales)
Filed under: Dan Cottrell, Rugby Coaching, Rugby Skills, Rugby Training | Tags: coaching mini rugby, coaching u9, leanring by doing, rugby games, rugby sessions, youth rugby
Just play the game. “Joue” as the French would say.
Too many times players come to rugby training to “play rugby” and yet go away from a session with a five minute game at the end as a “reward”.
I gauge a good “junior” session by the amount of times the youngsters say to me: “When can we play a game?” The less the better!
With my Under 9s team, we start our sessions with a game, then another, do some skills and then play another game. The games at the start have some conditions, such as the types of pass used, or the size of the pitch. The skills might be extremely modified games and the game at the end is as close to the real game as we can with the numbers we have.
The challenges are:
1. Covering the full range of techniques correctly. Actually the games tend to use most of the skills, so modifying the game allows us to isolate some of the skills and yet keep them in some context.
2. Keeping all the players involved. Certainly at younger age groups one or two players can dominate. We have moved players around the teams, played smaller sided games or just removed the players if they become too greedy.
3. Personal feedback. In a game situation, with so much going on, specific feedback can be lost as the ball moves on. We are lucky to have three coaches, one who referees, one on the pitch as the game is played and the other stands back to look at the wider picture. From these positions, we observe different angles, say things from different persepctives and the coach who is standing back can offer something to the player the two coaches too close to the action cannot see.
I wonder whether this model can be used for more senior teams…
