EXPERT SESSIONS AND ADVICE FROM QUALIFIED AND EXPERIENCED GRASSROOTS RUGBY COACHES
If you are able to train, then you will be aiming to improve your players’ skills and tactical appreciation around specific areas of the game.
If you are in lockdown, it’s a chance to hone your session planning in readiness for your return.
In this planning for post-lockdown training, we are going to look at rebuilding your lineout skills. Specifically, we want to relearn the throw, jump and catch connection.
To enhance learning, you are better off focusing on an “arc” of learning for a specific area. This means spreading out the training over a number of weeks, rather than dedicating one session to this.
Here’s a four-week plan for the core lineout skills but you can split this up into more sections if you want.
Objective: Develop the connection between the throw, jump and catch.
Week one: Catching for everyone.
Week two: Lifting for everyone.
Week three: Throw, jump, catch for everyone.
Week four: Working as threes into a game situation.
Let’s say you dedicate 15 minutes each week to the activities and assuming you have warmed up before the start, you could use a mix of games and drills.
Each session may include all of the skills or tactic from all of the weeks. However, each week focuses on the specific skill/tactic, the reasons why there are important and how the players could improve their own contributions.
The mix depends on the skills of your players. Here are four ideas to help.
Here are the other plans in our lockdown series:
in Rugby drills, Scrums & Lineouts
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The best forwards’ coaches are often likened to nutty professors. Absolutely embroiled in the detail of lineouts and scrums, they find even the most mundane technique exciting. But their enthusiasm and understanding is all for nothing if their sessions are not interesting and engaging for the players. Watch England’s former lineout guru Steve Borthwick, now with Leicester, at work and you will see he’s constantly looking for ways to make training as close to the game as possible. Mike Cron, who’s done so much with the All Blacks over the last decade, is the same. MORE
With a slippery ball, make sure your lineout is secure by getting the jumper into space to meet the throw. The pod of three acts together to beat the opposition into the air. Shortened lineouts in wet weather reduce the chances of dropping the ball and conceding territory. MORE
Scrum halves and hookers need to be on the same wavelength. The timing of the put-in and strike have to be perfect to ensure clean ball every time at the back of the scrum. A clean strike at the scrum means the ball is available before the opposition back row is ready to react. Work on your 2 and 9 put-in connection. MORE
Though you aim for perfection, you know perfectly well that there will be times in the game when your team have to clear up the mess from a scrum or lineout. So, it’s worth devoting some training time to develop strategies to deal with these situations. MORE
in Email Newsletters, Scrums & Lineouts
Lineout training should be based around getting the basics right first. When Gary Gold was coaching the South African team with Victor Matfield and they were the best lineout in the world, he used to say: "They know where the ball is going, but Victor will always beat them into the air." But a lineout is not just about the jump/lift. It's also about what happens afterwards. Here are four activities to develop different aspects of this set-piece situation. MORE
