DN Rugby Development

In spite of the weather, it was great to be back out on the pitch this afternoon with new recruit ! 🌧

Adam is a FOSROC Academy player that has played representative rugby for both Glasgow and Scotland at age grade level. Having received a scholarship to the renowned Stellenbosch University Rugby Programme, his time in South Africa was unfortunately cut short due to the Covid-19 situation 🇿🇦

Adam is looking to hone his skills at the moment having made a positional switch to fullback. He specifically wanted to work on his kick receipts/fielding- a key component of a fullback’s game 🔑

As part of our session today, we stripped receiving a high ball back to the bare bones 🦴 Focussing on:
- Adjusting feet immediately to be able to run onto the ball and jump. This helps prevent being caught under the ball and facilitates extra jump height.
- A powerful single leg jump, lifting the front knee as high as possible. This helps protect against on coming players and affords the protection of not legally being tackled in the air.
- Worrying only about the ball. Everything else is out of the player’s control in this situation 🎯

We then moved this skill into more fluid combination drills with passing and kicking elements ⏩

Looking forward to working with Adam more in the future! 🙏🏻

⁣
Another great week of sessions in the bag ✅⁣
⁣
Brilliant seeing the progress each of my players is making. Although some denomination of training has started up for most of them, they are still prepared to put in the extra hours to improve 🔝🔜⁣
⁣
Here, we have a few clips from my session with Adam this morning. This video shows a drill which I’ve started to use specifically for wingers comprising of 3 key elements:⁣
⁣
1️⃣ Kick Receipt- First and foremost, secure the ball. Wingers nowadays have to be comfortable taking all types of kicks.⁣
⁣
2️⃣ In-field pass- Linking with the fullback through an in-field pass is often a good option as they are likely to have had more time, and have been in a better position, to assess where the running/kicking space is. That link isn’t possible without a good pass from the winger. We are using the ‘back’ post from this view as our ‘dummy’ fullback target. ⁣
⁣
3️⃣ Support line- The job isn’t done after the pass. Go in search of that ‘second touch’ in this phase of play. Wingers such as Chris Ashton have made a career out of it. To replicate this, Adam continues his run after the pass and goes around the ‘front’ post from this view to replicate an anticipatory support line.⁣
⁣
If you would like to organise a session or even just talk through some elements of your game that you’d like to work on, feel free to give me a message.

Footage from my 3rd session of the day with the main man Michael Scott 💪🏻

Mic and I stumbled through a law degree together and it’s great to hear he’s getting a shot at Super6 with Ayrshire Bulls in the front row for the 2nd consecutive year. Well deserved, mate! 👏🏻

In this drill we’re replicating, as far as possible at the moment, three key options that forwards often find themselves with when receiving the ball within the game’s modern attacking patterns:

1️⃣ ‘Carry’- All in the word really. Carry the ball hard whilst using footwork pre-contact (pre-cone in our case) to try an exploit spaces between defenders and find weak shoulders.

2️⃣ ‘Tip’- A short pass, inside or outside, to a player running a close supporting line. Using the post here as our ‘tip’ runner target.

3️⃣ ‘Release’- ‘Releasing’ the pass behind the ‘tip’ runner (the post for us) to another support runner coming from deep on an outside arcing run, often the stand-off.

Having rolled the ball to his feet, I then called the option I wanted to him to take and execute 📢

I might not have ever been in a scrum or line-out, but there are plenty elements of the game that forwards and I can work on around passing/handling, defence, the breakdown, game shape and agility.

Cheers Mic, good to see you around a proper club for once...

Really enjoyable first session with Owen this morning!

Owen is a stand-off for West U18s and I first coached him 4 years ago when he was just starting out playing rugby. It’s great to see that now he is pushing for regional team selection, a testament to his work ethic and desire to learn. 🧠

Following some work on his running game and passing, we turned our attention to the drop kick. Which in my opinion is one of the toughest skills in the game. 😅

We focussed on the key principles of:
- Staying tall and strong when coming into the kick to maximise balance and levers
- Consistent, controlled ball drop keeping his right hand in contact with the ball for as long as possible
- Transferring weight through the ball at impact and following on towards the target 🎯

It’s great to have a kicker on board as it’s a highly technical area of the game that requires constant attention.📈

Luckily I got the camera out at the perfect time to make Owen look good... 👇🏻

The fine details 🔑⁣
⁣
Quality session first thing this morning with Aaron Purewal. Aaron’s a good mate, has been playing at some of the top clubs in the country for several years now, and has represented Scotland at U19’s level. 🔝⁣
⁣
He mentioned to me about wanting to work on his attacking kicking game, which has become increasingly important for wingers in recent years and a point of difference for the likes of Jacob Stockdale (Ulster and Ireland player) for example. ⁣
⁣
We worked mainly on chip kicks in the wide channel and the key focuses were:⁣
⁣
1️⃣ Staying tall and keeping the ball in a neutral, two-handed position to keep all run, pass and kick options open⁣
⁣
2️⃣Consistent ball drop ⁣
⁣
3️⃣Foot positioning at contact and the notion of letting the ball ‘bounce off’ the foot, allowing for greater control over the weight of the kick and using the body’s momentum rather than a strike. This makes it much easier to get back into your stride post impact with the ball. ⁣
⁣
If executed correctly, chip kicks can be near impossible to defend against 🤫⁣
⁣
Looking forward to working with Aaron more over the weeks to come 👏🏻⁣
⁣