EXPERT SESSIONS AND ADVICE FROM QUALIFIED AND EXPERIENCED GRASSROOTS RUGBY COACHES
04/16/2021 | Rugby drills
Improve your players’ awareness of how to move together as a defensive line. A defensive line needs to know who’s covering who and then double up if they can to make a tackle. MORE
04/11/2021 | Rugby drills
Introduce players of mixed ability to contact by building up the skills through games and questioning. I’ve found that using this progression of activity, the players develop contact skills together. You can adjust the pitch sizes and timings to suit your players. MORE
04/10/2021 | Attack
This session will help players highlight their core skills under pressure. It works especially on short passes when the ball carrier is running “offline”. Offline means the passer is either running towards the intended receiver or away. MORE
07/28/2020 | Mini tag
Get your ball carriers used to running forward to score tries. This session can be run as a warm-up or as a proper tackling session as well. Often players fail to run forwards even when they know the try line is that way. This session should encourage them to attack a space in front them and go for it. MORE
12/7/2019 | Rugby coaching
Your side will have its fair share of stars, good players and not-so-good. Keep all the players involved and happy, and make each one feel they are a world-beater. MORE
11/24/2019 | Rugby drills
"There’s not much incentive to be a third receiver. The Law of the Jungle suggests that if you want to touch the ball, you get close to it." MORE
04/19/2021 | Small-sided games
I've been fortunate enough to have Eddie Jones deliver some sessions. This is the game he started with and it is excellent for reinforcing key messages around core skills or principles of play. MORE
03/1/2021 | Small-sided games
Use this unusual pitch set up to pose problems for your players to solve. As they work out ways to score they will begin to use handling and support to create width on their game. MORE
02/25/2021 | Footwork and evasion
Encourage your ball carriers to run at pace, looking to avoid contact by anticipating where the spaces are. This is a scanning exercise for just the ball carrier. They will make mistakes, yet start to become attuned to looking for gaps. MORE
04/18/2021 | Rugby drills
04/15/2021 | Rugby drills
04/12/2021 | Kicking & Catching
04/3/2021 | Rugby drills
03/26/2021 | Rucking & Mauling
03/22/2021 | Rugby drills
The use of pods, that is small pre-defined groups of players, used to be the preserve of the top teams. However you can utilise these groups to help your players gain more structure and, crucially, know where they have to run and who they have to support. MORE
The fend is controversially illegal up to certain age groups. It is an important attacking weapon though, which can be utilised to beat a player one-on-one or to offload to break through a defensive line. It needs practising, especially so players can use it in games once they’re of age. MORE
Play a game of six versus six and give the attacking team two balls. Strategically the attack should split themselves into two groups as should the defence, the decision making and spatial awareness will become apparent as the game develops. Once a try is scored everyone focuses on the remaining ball. Start with touch rugby before developing into full contact. MORE
04/17/2021 | Warm Ups
‘Escape the square’ is a quick game that can be used in warm ups to get players focused on moving the rugby ball in attack, scanning for space and communicating with team-mates. MORE
09/22/2020 | Email Newsletters
Evasion is a fundamental movement skill. Players use in pretty much all their activities, without necessarily focusing on the specific skills they need. Without becoming too bogged down in the technical requirements, you want to improve your players starting and stopping, balance, change of direction and acceleration. With that comes an awareness of space, time, teammates, the opposition and the ball. MORE
09/3/2020 | Email Newsletters
It's exciting that in England at the very least, contact training is back. However, with only 15 minutes allowed for contact training, you won't be wanting to waste any precious time. So, why not get the players warmed up for contact, without contact! How does that work? MORE
04/18/2021 | Round-up Rodeo with Phil Llewellyn
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week. This week's guests: Greg Mannion, Leicester Tigers Junior Academy Manager, Ben Lazenby, Former Leeds Carneige Academy Manager and Tony Fretwell, Womens Super League FA Head of Academies. MORE
04/14/2021 | Girls/Womens
The remarkable and untold story of the 2014 Rugby World Cup winning England side from the view of their coaches, Gary Street and Graham Smith. In this episode, recovering from a World Cup final loss, the power of a Post It note, ‘Toughen Up Tuesdays’, random Tornado's and how a 'wet Wednesday in Waikato’ in 2013 was so significant. MORE
04/11/2021 | Round-up Rodeo with Phil Llewellyn
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week. This week's guests: Jack Moran, Norwich School Head of Rugby, Leicester Tigers Pathway Coach, Mark Grigg, Assistant Director of Sport and Head of Rugby at St Joseph’s College, Ipswich and Andy Skeehan, Director of Rugby at St Michael’s College, Dublin, and Leinster Schools Head Coach. MORE
04/5/2021 | Podcast
The remarkable and untold story of the 2014 Rugby World Cup winning England side from the view of their coaches, Gary Street and Graham Smith. In this episode, early forays into the women's game, creating monsters, hotels 'down the road’, how one tackle in 2006 changed the face of English women’s rugby and the how pain of the 2010 World Cup Final loss drove them both towards 2014. MORE
04/8/2021
I recently polled coaches on Twitter on how long they spent planning. While over half suggested they spent up to 25 minutes on the process, two in every five coaches spent longer. Planning a session isn't easy and we all know the horrors of a poorly planned session. Here are two coaching ideas to make it easier. MORE
04/6/2021
In all the excitement of the planning for the first full session back at training, I forgot three things that would have made a difference to training. Not perhaps the vital difference, but when you’ve coached for so long, it’s annoying when you make mistakes. I was lucky enough to work with three experienced co-coaches... MORE
03/30/2021
With more and more sport opening up in the coming weeks, everyone will be excited about the prospect of training and even playing. For some teams, the training sessions will almost run themselves as the players are keen to just be back together and play. For others, they might have lost a certain amount of confidence, fearing that their months of inactivity will make a training session an horrific aerobic disaster zone. I think you have three tough decisions ahead of you. MORE
“The boys have really enjoyed the drills from Rugby Coach Weekly. It's been great having them at my fingertips and every training session this season we tried new things, which I believe helped keep the boys interested and enthusiastic.”
Phil Hopkins, Perigueux, France
72 of the Game's Tactical Concepts in Simple, Plain Language MORE
With so much to cover when coaching young players, it can be a daunting task to know the basics... now there's help MORE
