In my Ask Dan post, I answer a question I get asked regularly: “my players are skillful but lack aggression when it comes to games – how can I address this?”.
I offered some games and solutions to the question on creating more “aggressive players”.
I coach boys ages 14-18, they have the skills and ability...but so often they play like scared kittens. How can I build fire and desire in my players? MORE
Here are some more thoughts:
Leave off the “big speeches”. Let them do their own or ignore them altogether. Players become immune to this sort of emotional charges after a time. Very few coaches can do this effectively anyway.
Play competitive games in training where there’s more pressure than normal. For example, add in a consequence like: who tidies away the kit or has to clean someone else’s boots. It should be enough of an imposition to make it the players want to avoid it, but not enough to make players refuse to do it.
Play “dirty” games – where there are few rules. For example, in a narrow area, one team has to score at the other end. They can’t pass forwards. No tripping or grabbing the head, but also no offside.
Review your pre-match warm up routine. Are you doing any tackling just before kick off? Are the players ready mentally and physically for the first contact?
What’s your first “5 minutes” focus for the match? It might need to include dominating a situation physically.
Play domination games, especially 1v1s.
PS: The coach wrote back to say: “We’ve put some of these suggestions into our training this week and we’re already seeing improvements. We hope to build on these early successes and take the fight to our opponents this season.”
My U15 team has leaked lots of tries from scrums and lineouts recently. What are the best ways to defend from these set pieces?
The problem lies in the connection between the forwards and the backs. The backs are 5-10m back from the forwards, so when the ball is released, they don’t immediately connect. MORE
I coach boys ages 14-18, they have the skills and ability...but so often they play like scared kittens. How can I build fire and desire in my players? MORE
At Under 10s, players struggle to recognise that a couple of passes open up the game. Instead of passing to space they simply run there. That reduces the impact of other team mates and often it’s only the quicker or stronger players who get their hands on the ball. Solve this with two long-term fixes MORE
"With the return to rugby, I’m really worried that my team (U13s) will have forgotten lots of things about rugby. In particular, I’m trying to work out when and how to introduce contact and tackling."
This question came from a coach in Gloucester and is typical of lots of concerns around this area of the game.
It is true that the players will have "forgotten" lots of skills.
Here's how I would approach this situation. On the next page are two tackling exercises to support training.
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received these two emails within a few hours of each other, so this isn’t an isolated situation. However, I will hasten to add, it’s not a problem either.
Up to the age of 17/18, boys grow at very different speeds. This is both physically and mentally. It’s likely that the more “aggressive” teams you face have a number of boys are ahead of the curve in this sense. They are more mature than their peers. MORE