Pre-Season Training

There's no fixed rule, but most amateur and club teams work with somewhere between four and ten sessions over a few weeks. The key is not the length, but making sure each session combines fitness, skills and game-realistic play — and that you focus on a small number of priority areas rather than trying to cover everything.

The main focus should be building an aerobic fitness base, refreshing core handling and contact skills, and re-establishing a small number of key patterns (lineout, scrum and back-line moves). Games-based training that combines fitness and skills together is generally more effective than separating them into different blocks.

Rather than relying solely on team sessions to build fitness, encourage players to do some conditioning work independently before pre-season starts. In sessions, use games-based fitness work — such as continuous touch in small areas — to build an aerobic base while reinforcing skills under fatigue.

Periodisation means spreading different elements of your training programme across sessions over time, rather than covering everything in every session. This adds variety, reduces boredom, and helps prevent overuse injuries by avoiding repetitive strain on the same muscle groups and movement patterns session after session.

If you don't have enough players for a full 8 v 8 contest, try "lean-to" scrums (players get into correct scrum body position after a short conditioning exercise, with the scrum going on the feed without a full contest) or a 5 v 5 scrum with only a half-metre of push, carefully managed for safety.

Small-sided continuous touch or TAG games are excellent, especially set up as an "aerobic square" — four pitches arranged in a square, with teams rotating between them after short bursts of play. This builds continuous running fitness while reinforcing handling, support and decision-making.

Very few. Focus on two or three core lineout, scrum and back-line moves, and drill these until players can execute them quickly and accurately under pressure. Trying to install a large number of moves before the season starts tends to create confusion rather than clarity.

Make sure every session includes a game — even a small-sided, non-rugby game — as this is one of the main reasons players show up. Also, talk to each player individually about what they want to improve, give them a menu of options if they're unsure, and gather quick feedback at the end of sessions (e.g. via a huddle) to reinforce a sense of progress.

Generally, avoid trying to install a complex blitz or ruck-defence system in pre-season. Instead, focus on good line speed and marking up attacking threats, which can be developed effectively through touch games with specific conditions.

A typical structure might include: a warm-up (handling and low-impact contact), a skills/set-piece block (e.g. scrum profiling and small-sided back play), a phase-play activity (e.g. plays off the scrum), a game-realistic activity (e.g. a kicking game on a narrow pitch), and a conditioning game (e.g. touch rugby with periodic shuttle runs). Keeping sessions varied helps mirror the nature of real matches.