When we return to play, there will be plenty of rustiness where skills have fallen away.
While our priority will be re-engaging players with games, we will still need to mix in “skill zones”. This is another name for a more intense focus on a particular skill or technique.
Have a bank of skill zones ready to drop into your sessions.
Let’s focus on passing. Here are a range of activities/drills that give plenty of chances for players to catch and pass under various different levels of pressure.
Develop your players’ ability to pass with their heads up to see what’s coming. Help them pass in corridors of traffic but with limited chances of collisions.
Avoiding collisions means looking ahead, but still looking to take a pass. Expect mistakes as players don’t focus on what’s in front of them enough. MORE
Improve your players’ handling awareness at the start of a session with this ten-minute warm-up activity. Expect lots of mistakes, but also plenty of laughs and development. MORE
Exploit the space on the outside for your wingers by using effective passing and fixing defenders. Give your speedsters enough room to run in that space.
If you have a quick winger, then you need to hold up the midfield defence and allow that player time and space to attack. MORE
Hone a better passing technique for your players with this coach-fed exercise which starts with a focus on one player at a time and their handling ability.
Develop good habits for your players by encouraging them to turn their shoulders and hips to deliver short passes to team mates running onto the ball. MORE
Lineout training should be based around getting the basics right first. When Gary Gold was coaching the South African team with Victor Matfield and they were the best lineout in the world, he used to say: "They know where the ball is going, but Victor will always beat them into the air."
But a lineout is not just about the jump/lift. It's also about what happens afterwards. Here are four activities to develop different aspects of this set-piece situation. MORE
There are so many elements to passing, which ones do you concentrate on first and how do you train them?
Here are a bunch of the priority skills you need and then great ways to train them. MORE
The RFU has brought forward plans to reduce the tackle height at age grade rugby to below the armpits.
Talking to experienced school coaches in particular, they don't see much change in the impact on the game as a whole. However, it is an excellent opportunity to reexamine your tackle technique training. MORE
If our players communicated more effectively, then the ball carrier would know when to pass or when to take contact.
Create more opportunities for this to happen by making it matter. The best exercises provide chances for players to see the value in calling for the ball.
Here are four good activities to use. MORE
Did Warren Gatland pick the right players for the British and Irish Lions summer tour to South Africa?
His team of selectors will have been looking at balance and the style that they want to play. They might not pick the best players but more likely combinations that will complement each other. MORE
Against an organised defence, you can use closely packed groups of forwards to dent the line and then attack the recovering, disorganised defence. Often known as pods, this requires organisation, especially around the roles of the players in terms of carrying the ball and supporting that ball carrier.
In its simplest format, after a set-piece like a scrum or lineout, the forwards who were not involved in winning the ball back after the first tackle, realign to take the next pass. This is in the expectation that the backline doesn't penetrate the line the first time. MORE