Junior Coaching Book (1).pdf

There will always be the parent who “can't hear, won't
listen” who is out to give you a hard time.
When this happens, all you can do is to LISTEN. After
all, the buck stops with the coach.
Where players are concerned, never tell them lies. If you
do they will never trust you.
Don’t say things such as “c’mon get some tackles
made, that big guy wont hurt you”. Making tackles
can hurt you, and in my experience “big guys” hurt
you just as much as the little ones!
PART 2
THE FIRST FEW MONTHS
Without going into a whole lot of detail about trying
to attract players and working out if you can raise a
team etc. I am assuming that numbers are not a major
problem.
As the coach of a new team your first
job has to be -
CREATE A PLAN.
I have stated many times that “all training must have
a purpose”.
How can you have a purpose without direction? You
have to plan where you are going in order to keep
going in the right direction.
Our training schedule had been set at Tuesday and
Thursday, I spent the first week setting some very
simple exercises, drills and small sided “end” games.
I spent that week watching and listening.
You watch for:
1. Natural skills and abilities
2. Players who do not appear to have any of the skills
3. Natural leaders
4. Natural followers
Armed with two or three pages of notes and
registration cards a plan will begin to emerge.
Important Point No.1 - Plans emerge from
information you gather. Just as information may
change over time, then so must your plans. Plans are
not cast in tablets of stone.
The Plan was:
1. To teach ALL players how to tackle.
No player would be sent onto the field to play a
game of Rugby League without being able to
perform Front, Side and Reverse tackles
competently in training. No coach can say exactly
how his players will perform on the field, all you
can do is practice technique in training and make
a judgement as to when a player is ready.
2. To teach all players how to hold the ball, pass
and catch.
These are the minimum skills necessary before
we took to the field. Most of the players already
knew the techniques although some bad habits
had already started to creep in. We practiced
“static line passing” and “running line passing”
over and over again until the drill was almost
second nature!
3. To teach players about individual playing
positions
We tried to show players what roles each position
is supposed to play and why it is necessary to
keep in position.
We tried to show players how to use the space on
the field and avoid “bunching” around where the
ball is. Gone are the days of a “22 player crab”
moving round the field!
4. We taught the “GAME PLAN”.
Any game plan must be simple, especially for
kids who are just about 11 years of age!
We talked to them about “ triangles”
Fig 1. Shows the basic field position for an 11
per side game:
Fig 1.
9
(hooker/ act half)
8 10
prop prop
6 7
Five-Eight scrum half
5 4 11 12 3 2
wing centre 2nd row 2nd row centre wing
What we tried to show was how many “natural
triangles” exist when you set your attacking field
positions as shown.
(see Fig 2.)
The plan itself was simple:
a. No.9 gets to every play the ball and restarts play
b. Either No.8 or 10 take a drive
Rugby League Coaching Manuals Page 6