Why a good game doesn’t always work

Watching good players train can give you plenty of ideas for your own sessions. However, what looks straightforward from the touchline can prove much harder when you try it with your team.

Grant Wrigglesworth explored this in a recent LinkedIn post. What interested me was his explanation of why the activity hadn’t worked, and how that changed his thinking about introducing it.

As part of his WRU Advanced Coaching course, Grant observed Wales U20 backs training. He described clear objectives, disciplined timings and exceptional execution, with very little isolated technical practice. Games brought together handling, movement, decision-making and tactical awareness.

Drawing on that experience and other observations, he tried a game he had seen at the Scarlets with Carmarthen Quins youth. He explained the purpose, demonstrated the requirements and walked the players through it.

“Then we played. It fell apart.”

Handling errors became decision-making errors. Players lost composure, frustration increased and engagement suffered. Grant and his fellow coaches reinforced the purpose and standards, eventually reaching something approaching an acceptable level.

“But it wasn’t the learning experience I’d intended.”

I think that distinction is useful. Getting an activity running reasonably well can feel like progress, especially after a difficult start. Grant was looking beyond that to consider what the players were gaining from it.

“The learning objective remains. The method adapts.” – GRANT WRIGGLESWORTH

His reflection focused on two areas. First, the psychological demands: concentration, resilience and willingness to persist through failure. He recognised their importance, but also questioned his own part in helping players demonstrate them.

“But was the environment I’d created helping the players demonstrate those qualities?”

Second, he considered the relationship between competence and complexity. His players could execute the component skills in familiar situations. Combining them with unfamiliar tactical demands, pressure and decisions had exceeded what some could manage simultaneously.

“I’d transferred an activity without sufficiently adapting the conditions that made it effective.”

For me, this is the most valuable part of his post. He identified something specific he could change, while recognising what his players could already do.

Grant’s response was to retain game-based learning and design a more appropriate route into it. He also highlighted the practical circumstances that shape a session: player capability, numbers, positional balance, coaching resources and time.

His conclusion gives coaches plenty to consider when borrowing an activity, including one from these pages: “The learning objective remains. The method adapts.”