Clinics @Comenius XIII

How fantastic to come to a school, carrying this net with rugby balls and see everybody smile and go: “Hey, we are going to play rugby!”

Yes! back to Comenius College, Capelle for the thirteenth time already. The school runs sport orientation classes where 15-16 year olds try different sports. I take care of the rugby clinics for many years now.

LPM Stage approach

With four clinics to run and 45 students participating I had a great opportunity to copy the LPM Stage approach by splitting the group in three teams, do general movement on the pitch with two teams and work more technical with the third. 

One of my learning goals this summer joining Pierre Villepreux and co. for 5th time was to better understand how and when to present the new ball. With players who are totally new to the rugby tactical concepts it feels like a blank canvas to experiment more.

Splitting the group in three

Again, this is based on the three types of participation: Leader, Follower and Satellite. I explain this in this blog post. I had to rely on the teachers to do this and they did pretty well I think.

Setting up the pitch

We work on a soccer pitch and I set-up like this:

So lots of space in the game to use. Lots of running required, also be me, working the perfect spot for that new ball while watching play develop.

Tactical versus Technical

In this three team rotational set-up we work on the tactical development, eliminate technical difficulties by simply feeding a new ball AND we work on technical development in that second grid.

Because so many mistakes are made, I try to keep the contest out of it a bit by not keeping score, give each team 5 consecutieve starts and encourage “Go on!” / “Advantage”. But, always difficult for the soccer players who like to appeal to mistakes by the opponents (surprised?).

Lesson 1

Lots of enthusiasm already in the 1v1 Duel exercise directly after the warming-up. Made the three teams and worked the sideline start drill again in the below set-up with three groups of attackers and defender, to immediately create those different support groups. The initial run into space went very well, but finding space and go forward was more difficult. It was more finding that “Leader” than continue the initial Go Forward.

The players mentioned the duel exercise for the third team was really helpful. This specific exercise is discussed in this blogpost. 

Reflection on Lesson 1

Theo was in my Under 18 team at Hilversum and helping me out. He did a bit of coaching but new to this approach. He liked it all very much, surprised how effective it all is. Realized when he was feeding the new ball he actually encouraged a hockey style circle the ball back to the other side approach rather then encouraging continue go forward. He also recognised how having three little groups of attackers would set them up for different support roles (good student!). That second group of attackers should be targeted with that second ball. 

We decided to focus on this in Lesson 2 and go for the 4v1+1+1 for the third team.

to be cont’d

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The post Clinics @Comenius XIII first appeared on Martin's Rugby Coaching Blog.