Whether you are refereeing in training (a good thing!) or have to referee your team on a Sunday (not such a good thing!), you will probably find yourself refereeing in some capacity this season.
You will need to be confident that you can apply the laws as a coach to satisfy referees who take charge of your team. And if you do find yourself reffing, then it’s far more than that…game management, crowd control, position, language, whistle control and signals.
Thank you to the great twitter-sphere, here is a summary of the insightful responses of those who find themselves reffing their team on a Sunday morning. MORE
Referees are very sharp on ball poachers who put their hands on the ground before grabbing for the ball. You must make your players whiter-than-whiter and also far more accurate in this area. It will reduce your penalty count and increase your chances of stealing the ball. Make sure that your ball poaching is not... MORE
You might hope not to have to get involved in refereeing, or “game coaching” as it is becoming known, or you might be dead keen to try. These days the objective is a free-flowing game, so the person with the whistle is more of a helper than a referee. Each side having a coach is... 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
I recently polled coaches on Twitter on how long they spent planning. While over half suggested they spent up to 25 minutes on the process, two in every five coaches spent longer. Planning a session isn't easy and we all know the horrors of a poorly planned session. Here are two coaching ideas to make it easier.
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In all the excitement of the planning for the first full session back at training, I forgot three things that would have made a difference to training. Not perhaps the vital difference, but when you’ve coached for so long, it’s annoying when you make mistakes. I was lucky enough to work with three experienced co-coaches... MORE
With more and more sport opening up in the coming weeks, everyone will be excited about the prospect of training and even playing.
For some teams, the training sessions will almost run themselves as the players are keen to just be back together and play. For others, they might have lost a certain amount of confidence, fearing that their months of inactivity will make a training session an horrific aerobic disaster zone.
I think you have three tough decisions ahead of you. MORE
Back to training and there are five things you must do to ensure you make the most of your precious time with your players. Before we start, here are three things you shouldn’t do: 1. Do fitness testing. 2. Overload the players with too many skills. 3. Run extra sessions for catch up. Click here... MORE
