Recent experiences have taught me that the basics of the game need to be practiced on a regular basis just for the players to maintain their existing standards. In days gone by the expectation used to be of the front row, that they show up, scrimmage hard, lift in the lineout and try not to get in the backs way.
Coaching The Game – Improving Handling
But today those days are changing and especially now as the vision of ‘total rugby’ starts to materialize on the pitch the requirements on all 15 players suggest that there is no longer an excuse to leave a player behind.
One of the things that still astonishes me today is how overlooked this is down at the lower levels. The general perception is that we can’t fix it so why bother, instead lets focus on minimizing the damage.
Now I don’t believe this and I believe that every player in the game should posses the following core skills:
- The ability to pass the ball ten feet accurately.
- Be comfortable when in possession of the ball, enough to be able to make a decision and execute that decision.
Now I have to make it clear that I don’t mean it has to be perfect every time because that is just an unrealistic expectation, but it is achievable.
I believe that as coaches we can improve the basic skills of our players by creating drills and games that enable them to passing the ball into practice. Practice should focus on a range of elements with in the skill. These elements need to consist of a selection from the following:
- Hands up, ready to receive the ball.
- Elbows up to allow for more accurate passing.
- Stepping in the direction of the pass, to make it easier and to allow the passer to then follow up and support.
- Depth of the receiver to ensure that even a flat pass goes both backwards and the receiver does not overrun the pass.
- Power behind the pass, passing does not always take place over the same distance and in the same situation.
- Situational passing to allow players to be more comfortable in offloading the ball what every the situation on the field.
- Be game relevant, so that players understand what they have available in those situations.
- Ability to see the right pass that puts the ball into space. The takes a lot of time to happen naturally.
More often that not kids seem to be encourage to spin pass the ball, but actually more often that not they are taught things such as the floated pass, the pop pass and so forth and what often ends up happening is you see passes drilled into the chests of the receivers because the passer was not able to adapt his pass because of his restricted skill.
Coaches at lower levels might actually see more benefit in spending more time on skill work than just focusing on game play, because if your players don’t have the skills to execute the plays, why do you bother at all.
In my session passing makes up more than 30% of every session and it is never just one drill and it always has progression as part of the development.
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