Rugby coaching tips to develop the five core skills

Rugby Coach Weekly can give you all the advice and activities you need to train the 5 core rugby skills. As a coach you’re always looking for interesting new ways to improve your players’ skills, and Rugby Coach Weekly has an amazing range of resources you can search for. But sometimes when you’re starting with a new group of players it can be hard to know which skills are most important for them, or you can lose focus on key skills. I have 5 top tips to help you coach key rugby skills.

1. Passing

• Whatever position a player ends up playing, passing will be a core part of their role. There is no excuse for any player not being able to deliver a variety of passes effectively or selecting the best pass to use in different situations.
• All players should be competent at delivering clearing passes, spin passes, orthodox passes and pop passes, and in both directions.
• In training, you must put players under pressure to deliver passes and condition games so players have to select different passes to suit different situations.

2. Running

Focus on the key running skills common to all players – acceleration, changing pace, changing direction and running efficiently sideways and backwards. Impress on the players the need to be balanced when they are running, especially just before contact situations.

Incorporate multi-directional running into all your warm-ups and work on all the running skills every week.

3. Support play

All your players need to understand their supporting roles in the game. Insist that they come from a deep position behind the ball carrier and accelerate onto the pass. They must communicate accurately with the ball carrier to tell him exactly where they are and when they want the pass.

4. Tackling

Players need to be able to execute a variety of tackles in different situations, and to make these tackles efficiently. Your team’s target should be that all players are competent tackling in one-on-one situations.

Work on individual technique and include tackling drills and games in every training session. Expose your players to different situations where they have to make different tackles.

5. Decision making

Some players are natural decision-makers, but it’s important that all your players learn how to make good decisions under pressure the majority of the time.

As with most complex skills, decision making can only be developed by making real-time decisions repeatedly.

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For more ideas on how to train the key rugby skills take a look at these drills:

Tackling Skill Builders

• Tackle session builder
• Refreshing tackle games
• Cover tackle chaos
• Defend on the run

Support Drills

• Run, support, realign, handle
• Supporting at pace
• Support play adaptive games
• Close support for the contact area

Decision-Making Activities

• Rugby drills and games to sharpen midfield decision making
• Skills to help speed up decision making
• Improve rugby players’ contact decision making
• Rugby coaching tips to improve decision-making skills

Fitness Focus

• Three games to improve fitness and skills
• Core skills and fitness drills
• Silent running
• Running circuit to improve rugby fitness and speed

Handling Skill Builders

• Improve rugby handling skills with the lateral pass
• Rugby drill to work on quick-fire handling skills
• The hand catch: Passing games to increase skills
• 3 touch rugby games for better handling