Keeping up-to-date

So, as I should have expected, this blogging thing is a little more difficult to keep relevant and up-to-date than it looks on the surface.

I was so positive about my debut post and the idea of sharing my thoughts with anybody interested (bored) enough to read, that I followed up with a couple within as many days. 

However, in my defence, starting at the end of the season was possibly a little misplanned. I've also been flattened with sciatica which has meant I haven't made any post-season sessions, or even been to the gym myself, which I will just as keenly report on!?

We have plans to put some of the more eager girls through some general athletic fitness/conditioning sessions as, for some (as I may have mentioned), rugby at college is their first real sporting endeavor.

On a very positive note, one of our rookies has been selected for the Grizzlies U23 squad, which is a great achievement as she came to the game from soccer in November 08! I think she is a great center, very strong runner and tenacious (bordering on vicious) tackler. Unfortunately, she entered a team where we have 2 very good senior centers, so she has seen too much wing action for my liking. True to form, however, as I experienced with my experiences with the regional set up back home, the Grizzlies have designs for her to play back row! I agree, she will do the job well, but I really don't think that they will benefit from her full potential - we'll see. 

I'd love to go support her for the 2-game weekend coming up in June, but sod's law says that it conflicts with the college commencement day, at which we have 6 girls graduating!

On a different note, I'd love some ideas to help with recruitment. The university has a very small academic population and it seems difficult to get the sort of numbers that we need for a competitive squad to succeed in our division. Any ideas for events/activities/incentives to help attract new players would be greatly appreciated (I'm confident that we are pretty good at retention).

While I'm recuperating (lying on my back surfing the web) I've been hammering my usual torrent source, where there is some good, and often random rugby for fast/reliable download. It's UK based stuff, with sporadic coverage of the Guinness Premiership and some Heineken Cup. I've just finished downloading a British Lions vs South Africa 1974 test, so dying to get that going. Check out www.thebox.bz and I'd recommend www.utorrent.com as the download client.

Also for those of you who might have used Setanta broadband previously but been disillusioned with the quirky controls and unreliable playback, they've put some good effort into updating the player. Check out www.setanta-i.com. I think subs are still $14.99/mo but the on-demand library is good.

Thanks

I'll get back to more regular messages.

A Numbers Game

So last game of the season and, as mentioned yesterday, last game ever for some tomorrow, so one might assume that everyone wants to put on a good show. That might be the case, but it would seem that there is a school of thought that practice is for the coaches’ benefit and not an integral step to team success. We had hoped to have more than the 11 that turned up to practice, which was further compounded by only 4 of those being backs (p.s. I’m predominantly a backs coach!).

 

I decided to go against our initial plans of running through the existing plays to fine tune lines and timing. Instead I introduced a new (to them) way of choosing and managing support lines. A few years ago, I had a coach who was keen on running attacking ‘diamonds’ and although it made perfect sense to me, the squad at the time didn’t really get it. It always seemed to be a training drill that never transferred to a change in game day thinking.

 

This transition from drill to game play is an issue that we seem to encounter week-in-week-out. For example, we can go through a period of team rucking drills or mauling drills against a tackle shield to focus on form and timing of support. However when the tackle shields are taken away and the practice becomes more open, many players can’t transition to choosing whether a maul or a ruck is the most appropriate option! It’s not a lack of skill, because they’ve spent 25 minutes proving they know how to perform the tasks, so why can’t they just do it. This takes me back to an important point in my first post – it is easy to forget that these things are not intuitive, as coaches we have to remember that we were not born with the ability to make such decisions.

 

What has that little digression have to do with the new ‘diamond-running’ drill of last night? Well, the 4 blank faces staring back at me after my initial explanation of the concept reminded me that just because it makes sense in my head, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything to these relative newcomers to the sport. Thankfully, when I stripped the ‘rules’ of the drill back to their key components and objectives, they all understood the why behind it all. This is easily half of the battle, and very encouraging when they can already identify game situations where it would help them be more efficient and effective.

 

So the idea behind diamonds is for a lead runner to have an option left and right, i.e. a team mate in a better position who can progress up the field. As the pass is made, the rear of the four reads where the potential gap is and moves up to one of the support positions i.e. left or right of the new lead runner. The initial ball carrier then becomes part of the new diamond, more often by dropping back into the rear position. (must work on best way to draw diagrams on here!)

 

Now this is where I have a problem with the diamonds that my coach proposed. The initial ball carrier dropping straight to the back tends to result in a fairly stilted, inflexible running pattern as the diamonds continue. The natural sequence is for the ever changing ball carrier to pass right, then left, then right etc, which flies in the face of what I try to encourage our backs to do. We need to get used to using as much of the space as possible, so flooding the direction that the play is moving in until the space is no longer useable. This fluidity is not encouraged if the ball receiver moves into the top-center position of the diamond. So, after discussing the pros and cons, a small change saw the ball receiver continuing in her channel with the support moving around her.

 

To my surprise and happiness, the girls immediately fashioned more of a circular motion to continue the diamond moving up and across the pitch. There was a definite dawning recognition of the benefits of this approach, and visible comfort with more efficient, structured support lines. 

Only problem is, that was only 4 of the players involved tomorrow. Worse still, 2 of the four are seniors, playing their last game!

Extend or Consolidate

Today we prepare for practice before the last game of the season, and for some of the team, the last competitive game of their short-lived rugby careers. From a background of training twice a week and playing (at least) once a week for 7-8 months of a year, 15 years straight, it is difficult for me to comprehend that some of the seniors are going to leave college having played less than 25 games total. More disappointing is the fact that nearly all of them will not get the chance to play again, as there is a scarcity of non-college women’s rugby locally.

 

Practice tonight will follow a similar theme to recent weeks, consolidating on previous core skills and encouraging strong decision making through the introduction of ‘risk-free’ practice situations. As coaches, we always strive to help our charges develop skills to excel and enjoy each game to the fullest. But what value is there in putting them through a rigorous session when they are unlikely to employ those skills past the 80 minutes on Saturday?

 

Obviously, we want them to win every game possible, and enjoy the experience along the way. Our impending opposition on Saturday is a team known to us already this season, with a squad the size that any coach would dream to have available. It will be a tough test, but not an insurmountable task. However, it will require everything that has been instilled in the seniors and a little more from the newer talents as they try to send off the ‘old girls’ in style and thank them for great service to the club.

 

Personally, I’ve always struggled with taking a competitive edge out of a “friendly” so I will continue to encourage the girls to treat the after-game celebration as the last hurrah, rather than the game itself. I won’t be able to stop myself trying to further refine some minute detail at practice tonight in the hope that it might pay dividends for a split second on Saturday and Saturday only. 

What I'm here for

Rugby has been my passion (some would say my obsession) for more than half of my life. I've played at various levels and encountered hundreds of players of various standards of experience and skill, which are not necessarily linked!

Having moved to California, I had naively resigned myself to the fact that the game might be less influential in my life. It was largely for this reason that I gave in and had a long overdue ACL replacement to force myself to 'retire' and ease out of playing before I emigrated. I vowed to enjoy everything that my new life had to offer and escape the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday schedule within which I'd existed for 15 years.

How wrong I turned out to be. For those of you involved in the game, this will come as no surprise, because it is simply unavoidable. Especially in this environment where it is very much marginalised, I'd say that the supporters are potentially more passionate than those back home who take coverage, news and live viewing for granted.

I quickly became involved in a social side to keep my hand in both on the pitch and in the pub. More importantly, I became involved in coaching a women's team, a concept that I never thought I would entertain!

It is this experience that I feel it is important to share, as it has helped me to reconnect with why I first got involved with the sport. After years of going through the motions of endless, seemlingly pointless, drills in the rain I had forgotten how much of what I do on the pitch is not intuitive, but has actually been learned directly and indirectly from players and coaches along the way. 

Rugby can be a difficult game to play or watch for a newcomer, as there seems to be intricate moves and often random rules, but once you've grasped running forward and throwing backward then the rest is just details.

By no means am I purporting to be an expert on the matter, or a world-class player, but I do have a strong understanding of how to break the core skills down into their simplest forms, to help make them easier to learn. Once the tricks and skills can be stripped back and demystified, anybody can have a go and see if they make their playing life easier and more successful.

Although we are nearing the end of activity with the team for another season, I will endeavor to post training notes, objectives and outcomes as I feel necessary. 

I would also beg for some leniency over the style and frequency of my blogging. I am new to this, but think that I will build up a useful library of hints & tips, news and, who knows, maybe some funny stories.