U16 rugby drills and games

Your approach

No pressure but...this is probably the most important year for a coach. It may be your last (I hope not), but the step up to U17+ rugby is when many players decide they have done their time in the game.

Technically and tactically, nothing changes much from now on into senior rugby. There are very few noticeable differences in the laws and the players will be starting to level out in terms of physical maturity.

Your challenge is to keep the fire in their belly.

Here are a couple of ideas to do that:

• Don't make training about fitness. While a fitter team will play better and enjoy their rugby more, keep conditioning in the background. Instead, have more intense parts of the session which are clearly rugby-related. However, do expect players to drop off from these sessions more. Their eating and sleeping habits (as well as some less delightful ones too) will be terrible, so they may not be in prime form.
• Do listen to the players. Give them more say in their training sessions. Give them ownership of sections, for instance, the fitness element! 
• Don't make it a senior atmosphere yet. Avoid pseudo-drinking cultures that go with senior and/or student rugby. Not every player is ready to embrace that, especially as they are learning about themselves at such a rapid rate.

You may have players who are now part of age-grade squads. Embrace this as a positive and give these players a chance to rest for certain games to allow others more game time, or only play them for half a game. That's a brave thing to do, so it has to be done with the whole squad in mind.