Fun Sessions for Young Players - Start with Safety

We all want our sessions to be fun, but it all starts with the set-up, safety and reassurance from coaches. Particularly for young players. Achieve that and you will have a fun, productive session.

Tackle Technique - Full Session

[WITH DRILL VIDEOS] This session from Joe Goodman (Bristol University Rugby) has been designed to prepare players for a return to full contact competition, re-establishing correct technique to ensure safe, efficient tackling through progressively increasing the level of contact and complexity of skill execution.

Teaching minis to pass backwards - full session

Learning to pass backwards is fundamental to rugby newcomers. This session brings minis out of a game for a few minutes to focus on that key skill, before taking them back into the game. Note the emphasis on questioning, development and how feedback changes depending on the ability of the child.

What can you do to finish a session?

Here's Graham Steadman, Head Coach at London Scottish FC explaining how he chooses to end his sessions. Let your players take ownership of their skills.

Planning your session & set up

Spending a few minutes to set up will improve the quality of your session considerably. Mixing games and breakout drills keeps the training fresh and interesting while the progressions you use reinforce the skills you are teaching

England Players - Make sessions fun

Ben Youngs and Lee Mears describe what they think are the essential ingredients that make up a fun and productive rugby session. Both were taking part in an England Rugby coaching challenge with schoolchildren in the build up to the 2012 Six Nations.

Turnover session - 1 Game to start

A full contact game, conditioned with channels on either side of the pitch. The attacking team must get the ball to both channels before they are allowed to score a try.

This is to spread the attack out, and create more opportunities for turnover ball to occur.

NB - Please ensure players have completed a full upper body warm-up before going into this full contact session.

Team defence Session

The team warm up with individual tackle techniques, progress to unit work and then onto full team exercises from set piece play

Kicking Session Warm up

The coach uses small sided games with progressions as part of the players warm up with a focus on the stretches that are related to kicking. Moving between the games and dynamic stretches keeps the players motivated, active and gets the blood flowing

Turnover session - Clearing

Breaking down the turnover situation into separate technical elements, players can work on their essential skills.

Here, in a series of progressions, the emphasis is on the first defender to arrive at the breakdown. They should attack the breakdown and fight to get through and past the ball.

Turnover session - Competing for the ball

To ensure players consider the best options at the moment they win turnover ball.

The easy option may be to go straight back into contact, but this gives the opposition time to organise a defence.

Encourage players to move the ball away from contact and attack the space wide

Turnover session - Learn to Jackal

This drill encourages players to contest for the ball while staying on their feet.

Progress to include reaction to a tackle and focus on getting on your feet quickly

Strong Body Position for Scrummaging - Full Session

Revisiting the finer techniques can help to build the overall strength of your set piece, and your attack. Before even getting to the scrum machine, you can develop your players strength through their body position.

Warm up with sprint from standing

Increasing the tempo is important in getting ready to play

Warm up with sprinting from prone

Add in the reaction of getting off the floor and back into the game and you are ready to play

Turnover session - 2 Games

A full contact game, conditioned with channels on either side of the pitch. The attacking team must get the ball to both channels before they are allowed to score a try.

This is to spread the attack out, and create more opportunities for turnover ball to occur

Turnover session - 4 Linespeed

In this exercise, the emphasis is on linespeed in defence. The purpose is to put pressure on the attacking team to force an error and create the turnover opportunity.

When an opportunity is acknowledged, players flood the breakdown to gain possession, before moving the ball away quickly

Minis Warm Up

Ben Mann from Northampton saints delivers a simple warm up that includes lots of movement and dynamic activities to increase blood flow in preparation for the main training session. Coaches can use lots of similar practises to keep children moving and engaged

Harlequins Academy - Warm-Up

The warm-up is an essential part of training and match preparation. Here's an example from Harlequins Academy on how to prepare for a handling session.

Speed Training - Warm Up Exercises

All athletes and especially sprinters use agility drills to get the body ready for speed training. Tom Varndell outlines some of the essential techniques players go through before the sprinting starts. You MUST WARM UP

Speed Training - Techniques For Speed

Speed drills are exercises that educate & prepare the body for explosive sprinting and are integral to getting quicker. These exercises should be practised regularly as part of a players overall conditioning program

Seven's - Speed Training

See some of the exercises the England 7's players go through for fitness & speed

The Tackler's Responsibilities

This clip shows a whole session including progressions on the actions of the tackler during the tackle and after the tackle. An excellent contact session delivered by the Sale Sharks Community coaches.

Sale Sharks Community - Breakdown Technique

Sale Sharks Community Coach Darren Lemon takes a youth session on effective breakdown technique, including essential safety pointers. Join now to see the full session and many others.

Create Opportunities for Success

We all prefer to have enjoyable training sessions. By including small-sided game and skills challenges, you provide more opportunities for your players to succeed, which in turn increases the enjoyment and benefit of the session.

Coaching Process-Course Structure

The coaching course is designed to assist coaches to be better at coaching and does not focus on increasing rugby knowledge

There will be several opportunities to coach and receive feedback from the session review

Every review is an opportunity for the coach to learn. Even when participating as a player for someone else, the coach should be considering the process and how it affects their performance and understanding of the task

Positive and honest feedback within the coaching group is a valuable method in which to help each other become better coaches


The coaching process is based on:

Instruction and explanation

Demonstration

Observation and feedback

Listening

Summary

Ruck touch - Focus on rolling players away

A key technique at the breakdown is the ability to roll players away, this applies when your opponent already has a good body position over the ball. Danny Wild from Leeds carnegie uses a game and breakout sessions to deliver his session

Conditioned Game

A full-contact game to finish the session. The condition is that breakdowns only allow one player from each side, putting more focus on open play to practice the running and tackling skills covered in the session.

Fun Catching Games

There's often down time before a training session where you can't help butthrow a ball around. Why not try out these fun games that will work your core skills as well. They work great as a gentle introduction to a session to switch players on.

Tackle Technique Tips

Defence is a crucial part of the game, and it all starts with a solid tackle technique. Here's an introduction into a typical defence session, with some basic progressions focusing on body position and linespeed. Log in to see the full session.

Training at Home

Players can develop their ability by putting in extra work outside of their rugby training sessions. Premiership coaches explain the benefits of training at home.

Stuart Lancaster: A Cultural Shift

Stuart Lancaster describes a shift in culture among the England Squad as they take part in a community coaching session in the build up to the 2012 Six Nations.

Speed Training - Speed Off The Mark

All players can train to get quicker & being quicker off the mark is a great asset to have when playing rugby. Tom Varndell one of the quickest players in the game goes through some acceleration drills

Make Your Warm Ups Competitive

Add a competitive element to your warm ups to engage your players and mentally prepare them for the session.

Full Competitive Warm Up

Heres a full warm up focussed on agility that adds a competitive element to engage your players and mentally prepare them for the session!

Scrum half pass with Lee Dickson

Lee Dickson leads a passing session at the Northampton saints summer training camp. The focus is on doing the simple things well and progressing the practises to make things more challenging

Paul Gustard - Using Games

Paul Gustard discusses the importance of using games in his sessions.

Contact Warm-up

A multi-stage bag drill that gets players ready for an intense contact session.

Teaching minis to pass backwards

Learning to pass backwards is fundamental to rugby newcomers. This session brings minis out of a game for a few minutes to focus on that key skill, before taking them back into the game. Note the emphasis on questioning, development and how feedback changes depending on the ability of the child.

Richard Wigglesworth - The Fun side of Skills

Saracens and England scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth discusses the importance of skills and how they can enjoyment to a session.

Stuart Lancaster: Importance of Playing Games

Stuart Lancaster explains why he thinks including game-play in rugby sessions is essential to player development.

Coaching Contact Skills With Games - U 11's

Using games to coach can be a challenge for junior coaches. In this clip the Sale sharks community coach delivers a session to develop contact skills at the breakdown by using games, questioning and challenging the players. This can be used for all Junior age groups

London Irish - Our Training Style

An insight into a Premiership Rugby training session. Do the top teams train differently to amateur clubs and schools?

The Importance of Playing Games

Stuart Lancaster explains the importance of using games for an effective rugby session.

Creating The Overlap With Loops

This session is all about creating the overlap through loops whilst your players are working under pressure with the ball in hand.

Paul Gustard - Games V Drills For Best Results

How do you decide on the amount of games v drills you do in your sessions. Paul Gustard provides an insight into his view and why

London Irish - Using Round Balls

Adding variety into your sessions keeps players interested as they learn new skills or try to improve key techniques but in a different way. Patrick O'Grady from London Irish explain why he uses different sized balls

Wasps - Keeping It Fun

We can all take things too seriously at times and need reminding why we take part in sport. It is not only the community game that keeps fun at the centre of things, the pro's do as well. This clip shows a simple fun game to use at the start of sessions

Full Dynamic Warm Up

Here's a full dynamic warm up from London Scottish, try this at the start of the next session.

Lineout Lifting Basics

The lineout is a key part of rugby union and it is vital for player safety and success that the proper technique is learnt. James Cannon of London Wasps walks through the key technical elements of lineout lifting and jumping. Log in to see the full session.

Ground work is crucial to retain possession

It is important for players to practice working hard on the ground to get the ball presented back to their team. This session uses bodyweight exercises to practice the movement and enforces it with a conditioned game.

Ball Retention Principles

Two of the key principles of ball retention are the efforts of the tackled player to present the ball, and the decision of the support player, to bridge, ruck, or recycle. Log in to find complete sessions on the relevant techniques.

Head Position training in units

A progression in the tackle technique session is to have four defenders working at the same time. All attackers should go the same way (directed by the coach) and the defenders can communicate which way to go.

Warm up options

A warm up that uses some simple games as the central theme. The session planned is for kicking so the coach conditions the stretching accordingly

Kicking Games

The coach uses a variety of games - and includes the players in this process - to provide some variety and present different challenges in a kicking session

The Breakdown Battle

The breakdown is becoming more important in rugby and elite coaches are delivering more detailed training sessions to teach the basic skills required to be effective and make decisions quickly and accurately

Breakdown - Coaching Players To Make Decisions

The coach uses a combination of drills & games to deliver a session on making decisions at the breakdown. There are some technical points and observations on the coach using classic "Tell & Yell" instructions

How to coach the Catch or Choke Tackle

Some of the latest ideas around tackle technique and what defenders are trying to achieve. This session provides the technical progressions needed to teach the choke / catch tackle

The Tackle Battle

Winning the collisions in contact is crucial in the modern game. The coaches provide some theory and practical examples of drills and games to reinforce the basic principles to be effective. The coaches use a variety of progressions and games to keep the session challenging

TAG Introduction to get started

Owen Davies from Saracens gets a TAG session moving quickly and straight into a simple game where each individual tries to collect as many TAG belts as possible

Games & drills for tackle technique

The Falcons coaches use a variety of games and breakout drills to progress their tackle technique session. The players respond to questions to vary the style of coaching

Games or drills ?

The coaches explain why they use games and provide examples of how they deliver a session using games with technical skills as the basis for learning

Ball Control & Passing

Controlling the ball is a fundamental skill, it may be simple but it is very important. Practise is important and is the foundation to passing and the ability to control and vary your pass

New Rules of Play - U9s

When viewed as a training session the New Rules Of Play are very straight forward and this clip should explain most of the changes and what you should be doing as a coach

Lineout Lifting Progressions

The second session focusses on developing the basic techniques for building your line out. Wasps second row James Cannon takes some level 6 players through some progressions

Games for Coaching - Examples

Coaches often request ideas to help them plan sessions. Here are some examples of the conditions that coaches can apply to make training more challenging and enjoyable

Brian Smith - How to Plan Training

London Irish Director of Rugby Brian Smith discusses the key objectives and challenges when planning a training session.

Drop off touch - start with a game

Chris Kibble of Esher RFC & Whitgift school says to start your sessions with a game. In this clip Chris runs a game called "Drop touch" where the players run back to a line when they make a touch. This is good for fitness and creating wholes to attack

New Scrum Laws - Hooking Technique

Jon Curry at Northampton Saints discusses the new scrum laws and their implications for hookers, along with some exercises to get them up to scratch. Log in to see the full session and many others.

Passing Accuracy

Accuracy of passing can make the difference between finished chances or missed opportunities. In this video, Northampton Saints look at developing passing accuracy through games and focused exercises. Log in to see the full sessions.

Running Lines in Attack

Modern defensive lines are well-organised and hard to break. It depends on the quality execution of attacking fundamentals. A good introduction is 'unders' and 'overs' running lines. Log in to see the full session.

Ground Work and Ball Presentation

It is important for players to practice working hard on the ground to get the ball presented back to their team. This session uses bodyweight exercises to practice the movement and enforces it with a conditioned game. Log in to see the full video.

Quins - Accurate passing

Harlequins Academy go through a few exercises designed to improve passing accuracy. Premier members can log in now to see full sessions from Harlequins and other Premiership clubs.

RCD Video Upload Tool: Tutorial

If you film your matches or training sessions, it can be hard to find time to share analysis with players or coaches. With our new video upload tool, you can add your own video clips to coaching plans, or just share them with friends. Here's a quick 'how-to'.

Coaching the breakdown

Looking at fundamental breakdown skills to manage the contact area. Log in to see the full session

Introduction to Contact - Be safe

Session Introduction. It is important for young players to be introduced to tackling in a structured and safe way.

Brian Smith - How to Plan Training

London Irish Director of Rugby Brian Smith discusses the key objectives and challenges when planning a training session.

Technical Fitness with Tackle Bags

Tackle bags are a great tool to use in your conditioning sessions. The reduced impact allows players to peform high repititions of contact technique under fatigue, with low risk of injury.

Improve your passing

Harlequins pride themselves on their attacking play and the foundation to this philosophy is the quality of their passing. Attack coach Colin Osbourne runs skills session on passing accuracy.

Scrum Half Passing with Chris Cusiter - Wrist Warm-Up

Sale Sharks and Scotland scrum half Chris Cusiter leads a session on passing from the base of a scrum or ruck. In this first video, Chris addresses basic technique in a couple of exercises that warm up the wrists and arms.

Stop Your Players Crabbing Sideways

Successful rugby requires players to run straight and fix defenders. This is a constant challenge to coaches and new ideas and exercises can freshen up your training sessions, this clip has two practises along with some advice from elite coaches

Develop Confidence For Tackling

Developing confidence in and around the tackle is very important when starting to teach tackle techniques. This clip provides a few ideas that you could use in your sessions

Fitness mid season

Midway through the season and time to review and refresh, is it time to integrate some fun fitness exercises into your coaching sessions

Scrum - 1 vs 1

Practice body position and warm up for full scrum session.

Warm Up - Lower Back

Various individual dynamic stretches for the lower back / core. Particularly important for injury prevention before a contact session.

Drop touch - Full pitch

In this game, defenders are randomly selected to sprint back to their try line before re-joining the game. This creates spaces for the attacking side to spot and exploit.

Continuity in Attack - Diamond Practice

The diamond practice can be the break out session of a whole part whole approach.
It is common when running such a practice for the attacking players to arrive at the tackle line having caught each other up. Depth should be maintained in order for the diamond shape to be fully effective.

The initial ball carrier needs to use footwork to move and disrtupt the defensive shape

Sevens - Uncovered - Attack

Elite coaches discuss their attacking philosophies and this underpines the skills and techniques they will work on as coaches and the type of trainign sessions they will plan. As a coach how do you coach the skills that the Fijian players possess or the patience the Welsh side had to win the last 7's world cup. Does the team represent the ideas and plans of the coach?

Mike Catt - Attacking from Lineouts - Back Ball

Classroom session with Mike Catt - discussing the key points of attacking from a lineout

Mike Catt - Attacking from Lineouts - Quick Ball

Classroom session with Mike Catt - discussing the key points of attacking from a lineout

Mike Catt - Commit the opposition 10

Classroom session with Mike Catt - discussing the key points of attacking from a lineout

Mike Catt - Attacking from Lineouts - Dummy Options

Classroom session with Mike Catt - discussing the key points of attacking from a lineout

Fundamentals of Movement - Skipping

This exercise breaks down the components to skipping, which is the fourth gear of movement in this session.

Paul Hull: Continuous Learning

Paul Hull explains the importance of keeping your coaching sessions fresh and constantly learning from others.

3v2 Warm Up To Switch On

Use this quick warm up drill to switch your players on for the session. It works on defence and attacking decision making as well as handling.

Tackle Technique 1/5 - Foot Position

The first step in this session on improving tackle technique, is focused on foot position and getting a strong base close to the target.

Learning to Tackle - Under 9's & Up

The RFU new rules of play have completely changed the approach of introducing young players to tackling. A phased approach may challenge previous methods however by viewing the practical session on this video you can see how the process works

New Rules of Play - Under 10s - Coaching Points

This video provides some detailed coaching points that the Saracens community coaches would recommend age groups coaches focus on in their sessions

Contact Skills for Young Players

Leeds academy coaches cover the fundamentals skills for the contact area. This is a useful session for young players to focus on body position and key techinques.

Improving support play

Decision making is a tricky skill to coach. Danny Wild the Leeds coach uses conditioned games with breakout technical sessions to improve this process as well as working on some groundwork skills