Dear Coach/Official
Welcome to the second edition of Coaching & Officiating E-News for 2007.
This issue's highlights include articles on Decision Making for both a referee and a player, pathways for young referees and coaching opportunities for Rugby WA. We hope the newsletter continues to provide you with information you'll find useful in your role as a Rugby coach or referee.
Hope you're enjoying the 2007 season!
COACHING NEWS
Decision Making in a Tackle Contest
Western Force centre Junior Pelesasa
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Without doubt, this is the one issue in the game that continues to create debate as to the best way to coach this aspect of play, and how to referee it. There are those who propose that players should be allowed to play the ball (in a ruck) with their hands, and there are those who propose that ‘anything goes’ as long as the ball is cleared.
The determining factor on what is legal and what is not, is what is currently written in Law. We all know that the tackler must immediately release the ball carrier when tackled, and that the ball carrier must exercise his/her options immediately, and that the next arriving players must approach through ‘the gate’. So why is it such a mess? The simple answer is that coaches of the defensive team are coaching to have ‘one dig’ at the ball and then organizing their defense so that it’s impregnable.
As a consequence, the attack has to commit a number of players to the contest to guarantee possession. They are then numerically short to attack (when compared to the defence), and find themselves trying to find mismatches and opportunities to create space. Outflanking the defence, and running to space is not an option. So what is the answer?
Essentially, the coach has to look at what options are available to the ball carrier when tackled. However, prior to that, the players have to analyse how they take the ball to ground. What shape do they assume on the ground; where is the ball positioned; and what opportunities do they have in relation to their support players? As in most things in rugby, its about ‘time and space’. At the tackle contest correct decisions have to be made in a split second!
If the ball carrier is cognizant of the time and space issues, then their support players must be cognizant of opposition “threats”. Threats take the form of immediate opponents who may contest the ball or slow the ball. They are in close proximity to either the ball or the tackled player.
The attacking support player(s) should communicate with the ball carrier prior to contact. (It should be noted that this situation recognizes that contact is imperative!!) What are the decisions of the first support player?
1. Ball carrier stays up and ball is visible – drive on ball carrier, and secure ball. This means that a maul is formed and offside lines are formed.
2. Ball carrier stays up and ball is hidden – drive on ball carrier, with strong leg drive.
3. Ball carrier goes to ground and ball is visible – drive out any opposition threats, or pick up ball.
4. Ball carrier goes to ground and ball is hidden – drive out any opposition threats, or roll tackler off ball carrier.
When ‘driving out’ opposition players, the attacking support player should attempt to have their weight over their feet; driving from low to high – using their arms, and driving from the inside to the outside (that is, towards the corner post). If this occurs, a space will be created directly behind the ball carrier which means that the next arriving players have the opportunity to ‘pick and drive’ in a straight line. This is one of the most vulnerable areas on the field as defenses usually spread across the field.
A number of players today arrive at the tackle contest and squat over/near the ball to secure possession, but are not actually achieving anything. How often do you see three or four attacking players committing to the tackle contest with no opposition players contesting? In short, this is a recipe for (attacking) disaster. Coaches need to take responsibility of what they are coaching at this aspect of play. How many are being committed? What are they actually doing? What impact do they have? What are the roles and responsibilities? What needs to be communicated? What decisions have to be made? How much time is available and where is the space?
Coaches could well spend a large proportion of training time early in the season in clarifying these issues with their players. It would appear that coaches are coaching the techniques for the tackle contest without players understanding the “why and when”. Conversely, coaches are training players to execute skills that they do not have the physical competencies to deliver.
It’s only when the whole team understands and practice making decisions at the tackle contest do teams re-cycle ball quickly. If this is achieved, then those players standing behind the tackle contest or backline can exploit the space.
Warren Robilliard
ARU Coach Education Manager
April 2007
Periodised Training - What are we coaching?
George Smith in training for the Wallabies
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How often do coaches actually spend the time to ascertain how long they have with their players each year on the training field? It’s an interesting exercise, and often one that is overlooked when viewing what players may need to take them to a more skilful level.
Coaches should equally understand that there are particular physical competencies (agility, balance, co-ordination [ABC’s], together with flexibility and speed) that underpin all their skill requirements and are mandatory for all athletes. If the ABC’s are not developed then the athlete will not develop to their potential.
So what is the coach coaching and when is it being coached? The majority of club or school coaches will have one or two sessions a week, and these sessions will be between 70 and 90 minutes in duration.
At the younger age levels (6-11 years) the player should “play”. Safety should form the basis of everything that occurs at training and the player should be coached basic skills of catch-pass, support, continuity and concepts of off-side. The player requires self confidence, and self esteem and the coach should be providing positive attitudes to Rugby. Every session should be active with little ‘down time’.
Moving into the next generation of players (12-14 years) the focus should be on player exploration. Players should be attempting to problem solve in a controlled environment. The game should be more structured, and training should concentrate on individual and unit skills. This will also include positional roles and basic attack and defence principles. The ABC’s will also require further development.
The playing group from 15-17 years is where the player focuses on technical and tactical competencies. Skill development includes individual and unit requirements to achieve team play. At this stage players are highly competitive and need to foster a greater appreciation of team spirit, goals and values. Training at this level is also quite competitive so improvements in individual endurance are essential.
In the 18-21 age bracket, players train to compete where they are usually outcome focused. They are interested in developing their positional roles and often offer strong opinions on how they want to play the game. The coach should encourage a facilitation environment where players have some ownership of what is occurring on the field. Both unit and team skills should be highly developed at this stage. Players should have well developed multi-sprint endurance capacities; strength and power; speed, agility and quickness.
At the final stage, players train to win. At this level, players will have mastered positional skill specifics; have highly developed analytical and tactical skills and will be following an individual program for skill development.
All of the above brings us back to the beginning – what is the coach doing at training? Firstly, the coach has to acknowledge and understand the level at which the players are at. The coach needs to plan training around what the essential requirements are for their individual group of players. With Rugby being such a multi-facted game, what comes first? Should a coach train the players in catch-pass (attack) if they are incapable of winning the ball from primary possession?
There are some non-negotiables that every coach must adhere to. At the earliest level, players must have the ABC’s of physical literacy. Competence here underpins all other skill requirements in Rugby. Rugby is often about how balanced and stable a player is - scrum, ruck, maul, tackle, ball carry and pass to name a few, and if the player does not possess balance and co-ordination then their Rugby will not develop to its potential.
Modern coaches talk about ‘core skill’ development. It’s a fact that to play successfully, players should be competent in the following:
a) Catch & Pass on both sides of the body
b) Track to tackle
c) Tackle
d) Dominant ball Carry and Win Contact
e) Continuity skills
f) Kicking skills.
There are also a number of mini-unit and unit skills that require development. These will include:
a) Scrum techniques
b) Lineout (Throw, Jump; support) techniques
c) Restart techniques
d) Attack techniques
e) Counter attack techniques
f) Defensive techniques.
If there is only 90 minutes available in a week top train all of these areas, which one is the focus? Clearly, the coach must be well planned and move from activity to activity with undue delay. Standing around and chatting about concepts/strategies is not the best way to utilize time at training. The talking should be completed before walking onto the training field. The strategies should be agreed to and confirmed so that training time is productive.
The successful coach, and the successful teams are those who have had training well planned, executed and reviewed. Its only when the coach spends 10-15 minutes to plan what will occur at training that teams will progress. Too often coaches depart from a school room, or get out of their car from work and allow players to dictate what is occurring for the first 15 minutes (usually touch) whilst the coach gathers his/her thoughts.
Every warm up should include the ABC’s in some form of activity so that the building blocks are in place for future years. Every 10 minute block of training should have an aim and a prescribed intensity and every training session should sequentially build towards playing a safe and enjoyable game where all players can progress and express themselves individually and within the team environment.
Warren Robilliard
ARU Coach Education Manager
April 2007.
Rugby Opportunities
There are currently a number of job opportunities at Rugby WA within the Community Rugby Department.
If you are interested in applying for either of these roles please click on the appropriate link.
South West Regional Development Coordinator or Coach Education Manager
REFEREE NEWS
School Student Scholorship Program 2007
The Australian Rugby Union, in conjunction with State Unions is continuing the School Student Scholarship Referee Program in 2007. The program which, is designed to cater for referees in years 11 and 12, commenced in 1999 with 3 referees (2 from the ACT and one from WA) will have 33 referees in the program in 2007, 12 from NSW, 12 from QLD, 6 from the ACT, 2 from WA and 1 from VIC.
The aims of this program are:
- To promote Rugby refereeing as an athletic pursuit for students at secondary schools
- To promote Rugby refereeing as a tool to assist with developing leadership skills and management qualities in a workplace
- To identify school student referees who in the course of their refereeing have shown potential and aptitude which could enable them to officiate at the highest level.
- To provide coaching and support to assist recipients in achieving their potential.
- To involve and expose the recipients to levels of the game which in other circumstances may not be available to them
- To recognise personal achievement of the individual
Two of the referees who have participated in the program in previous years have progressed to the ARU National Referee Academy and two are in the ARU Development Squad. Four referees have also progressed to be ARU/ASC Scholarship holders. A number of referees are now refereeing 1st grade in their home state. Overall the program is proving to be highly successful in identifying and developing talented school aged referees.
State Union referee development staff are responsible for providing a development program for participating referees. These programs include activities such as completion of Level 2 referee and touch judge courses and attendance at seminars and other development activities. The referees also provide support for the on-field officials at Super 14 and other representative matches and are also involved in officiating at half time junior games at Qantas Wallabies Test matches.
Over the years a number of scholarship holders have also attended National Championships where they have performed the roles of touch judge and No. 4/5 officials.
Decision Making in Rugby Refereeing
All Rugby referees are continually striving to be better at what they do. In order to achieve this, one of the areas that they can look at is their decision making and the process they use to reach the decisions they make during a game.
One of the elements of decision making is having knowledge of the actions that are occurring, i.e. prior knowledge of the event.
When starting out, new referees will have little or no experience in making decisions about the players’ actions they will see during a game. Will they know whether the payers actions are right or wrong? Will they be able to process the actions they are seeing and the information necessary to make a decision in relation to these actions quickly and accurately?
So, how do referees gain the knowledge to make decisions quickly and correctly? Firstly, by refereeing more games to build up the information they have available on the actions they are seeing on the field, watching other referees and looking at the decisions they make, talking to other referees about the decisions they make and the processes they use to make these decisions.
Look at it this way, if you see something for the first time, there is a 50/50 chance of getting the decision (or outcome) right. The more you see an action, the greater the chance of making the correct decision. Therefore, as suggested, the more games refereed, the more knowledge the referee builds up and the more information they have available to draw on in making the decision. The referee’s memory bank can be looked at in the context of a “tool kit”. When starting out, referees will have a very small “tool kit” with limited tools to draw from. As they grow in experience and knowledge, the size of the “tool kit” will grow with them and they will learn to develop and refine its contents. When they see something on the field that they recognize (from previous experiences) they will know which information to draw from their “tool kit” to assist them in making the right decision.
Take a couple of practical examples, in a typical game knock-ons occur regularly and over a number of games it is relatively easy to build up a picture of what should happen when these occur (thus increasing the contents of the referee’s “tool kit”). It is therefore easier for the referee to make better decisions or get the right outcome for knock-ons.
Conversely, think of an incident you observed in a recent game (either as a referee or as a spectator) that you had not seen before. How long did it take for you to process what you had seen and make a decision? Did you get it right? In a ecent Super 14 game, the attacking team put the ball into in-goal, a defending player gained possession of the ball and was subsequently held so that he was unable to ground the ball. The referee awarded a 5 metre scrum, defending team throw-in. How often have you seen this situation and would you have been able to make a quick and accurate decision?
When starting out, referees should aim to develop basic checklists to help them observe and recognize actions as they occur. With experience these checklists can be developed to form game management routines that incorporate more detailed thought processes and communication for the referee. After each game, referees should review the processes and outcomes they achieved to modify and adapt their management routines.
Of course, referees need to have a sound knowledge of the Laws, so that once the information on what is seen has been processed, they will be able to make the correct decision in accordance with the Laws. A combination of good processes and sound Law knowledge will assist referees in making quick and accurate decisions.
Pathways for Young Referees - A NSW Program
In 2006, NSW Rugby Union (NSWRU) began a new development squad for young referees called the “District Advancement Program” (DAP). This complements an existing “School Student Scholarship Program” sponsored by the Australian Rugby Union (ARU). These two programs now provide a solid developmental pathway for young referees to enjoy new experiences and improve their refereeing.
The DAP caters for young referees in Years 9 to 11 at school who are refereeing for one of Sydney’s 5 District Referee Associations.
The program includes attendance at a seminar, tickets to a Super 14 game, and an exchange program to a NSW Country Association. In 2006, the 10 referees in the DAP visited various Country Associations including Illawarra, Newcastle, and the Central Coast.
The ARU School Student Scholarship (SSS) is the senior development program for school student referees across Australia. In NSW, it caters for senior school referees in Year 12 who are looking to continue their refereeing after they leave school. The NSW program involves two seminars, one of which is an in-depth scrummaging session, attendance at a Level 2 Touch Judge course, a consistent gathering of referee coaching reports to view progress and a sighting of each student referee in action by NSWRU’s Referee Education Co-ordinator. Other potential activities open to SSS students are refereeing at the half time exhibition games during Test Matches and involvement as the 4th and 5th official at National Championships such as the U16s, Women’s and Schools’ Division 1 Championships.
These refereeing pathways will continue in 2007. In addition, NSW Country Referees Association will run a development squad program involving school aged referees and those in their first years of refereeing senior rugby.
