A medical trick to improve skills

I love messy training. I didn’t but, now, I’m far more confident in what I’m looking for in a training session. I can identify what I need before the session and then adjust my objectives as the session unfolds.

That’s my preference, and some of you out there will also enjoy that approach. Others will prefer a more ordered method, leading to more pressure and chaos by the end. I really don’t think one way is significantly better than the other.

I also think I need to make sure that some of my practices are less chaotic. That’s because the players prefer it that way. I’m not trying to make them too comfortable. Instead, I want to make them confident.

Confidence is a key factor in motivating players to be more daring. However, as you will see from the following development of a practice, the technique at the start of the practice isn’t the one makes the difference when you are working on the final piece of the training jigsaw.

It’s a trick that the medical profession use. Remember the times you’ve gone to the surgery for a minor ailment that requires some sort of injection. The medic engages you with some light conversation which is nothing to do with the fact they are going to stick a sharp object into your body. The anaesthetic does dull the pain a little, but it’s still a shock. Because your mind is elsewhere, you are confident enough to brace yourself when they suddenly say: “You will feel a small scratch”. In the next moment, the needle breaks the skin and in goes the fluid.

Let’s put that into a rugby context. You work on something the players find easy to improve upon. You do it in a controlled environment, perhaps picking out one specific technical point. The players develop, or feel they have developed at least. In a couple of weeks’ time, you will be returning to it to make sure they are continuing to improve.

Now, you develop the practice, ostensibly to put the technique under pressure. The developments become ever more chaotic. Mistakes are made and the technique suffers. That doesn’t matter. You should encourage and praise effort.

The real outcome is decision-making, not the technique. The players will be making numerous decisions where the new technique is only one small part of it. Because they have been focusing on the technique, they won’t fear the enormity of the task in front of them.

If you had started with the decision, then given them some techniques, they may well have struggled to get going and make any progress. The trick is the change of focus.

On page 4, the passing exercise at the start is the confidence builder. It gives the players some sense of success before they are under pressure to make decisions.

By the end of the session, there’s plenty of chaos. Skills will be tested to the full. Sometimes they will use the techniques from earlier. Don’t expect it. The real learning comes from their decision-making efforts.