Coaching Notes

Squad

We run two teams:

• Blue — moderate skill level. Won Division 3 of the Kent U13s.
• White — developmental skill level. Played Division 8 of the Kent U13s.

Squad physical & skill profile: our players are generally on the smaller side physically. Both handling and tackling skills still need development across the squad — these are foundational areas, not yet strengths to build tactics on top of. This shapes the playing style in playbook.html (quick recycle, continuity, offloads, avoiding unnecessary contact rather than seeking it out — "play like Japan, not South Africa").

Neurodiversity: we have several neuro-diverse children in the squad, including players with autism and ADHD. Session design and coaching delivery should take this into account (e.g. clarity of instructions, predictable structure, sensory considerations). See ref/Autism in Rugby.pdf and ref/ADHD in Rugby.pdf for club guidance on coaching neurodiverse players. This is also why playbook.html's calls are kept short, single-word, and used consistently in training so they become automatic — predictable, consistently-named calls reduce cognitive load in-game compared to ad-hoc instructions.

During the first half of the season (September to December), around 50% of the children also play schools rugby. This rarely creates a direct fixture clash, but overall contact-load across club and school rugby is a real consideration when planning contact volume in sessions.

This year's move from U13 to U14 also brings a set of RFU law changes — see laws.html — two of which (the fully contested 8-man scrum, and lineouts existing at all) are genuinely new skills for every player in the squad, not a step up from something they already do. Worth factoring into early-block contact-load planning alongside the schools-rugby overlap above.

See playbook.html for our playing philosophy and calls — kept as a clean reference (no squad/coaching context) that could be shared directly with the players themselves.

Training & Fixtures

• Matches: Sundays. Some Sundays only one of the two teams (Blue/White) has a match. Matches carry no training session plan or coaching objectives of their own — block1-overview.html lists them in its session list purely for the calendar picture (and as an informal read on how a block's content is landing), since we don't train on match days.
• Sunday training: happens on Sundays without a match, with the fuller space of a full pitch. Typically 90 minutes in total, including the warm-up and the close — plan to that, not to the length of the allocated slot, which is usually a little longer and absorbs arrival, kit and a late start. Time and pitch come from the club pitch allocation (we are U14M).
• Midweek training: Thursdays, 7-8pm, at TWGSB 4G — we have a third of a pitch to work with. That space suits contact-suitable skill-station work and tighter-space games; wide/full-width game patterns need the fuller Sunday space instead. See How sessions should be coached below for the contact-light approach we take to the Thursday slot specifically.

Thursday sessions always open the same way, before moving into that week's specific content (see block1-overview.html):

1. Warm-up — led by one of the players (rotating who leads it), ~5 min — the standard four-phase warm-up in warmup.html.
2. Essential skills — handling or tackling, ~10 min. These are the foundational skills the squad is still developing (see Squad above) and get dedicated time every Thursday regardless of the block's theme.

See calendar.html for the actual dates this season — match Sundays, training Sundays, and the mid-week Thursday slot.

Squad Structure & Training Groups

Training is typically run as one squad together, from a single session plan, rather than Blue and White training as strictly separate teams:

• We don't expect full turnout on Thursdays, which makes proper team run-throughs difficult on that night.
• There's also fluidity between the two teams (players move between Blue and White).
• Within a session we split as needed — most commonly by forwards/backs, or into team run-throughs when numbers and the day allow (more of a Sunday thing) — but this comes from one session plan with built-in splits, not two separate team plans.
• Some Sundays only one team has a match, which affects who's available to train that day.
• When a set-piece skill zone (scrum, lineout) ties up the forwards (and sometimes 9), give the backs their own parallel focus rather than leaving them idle — this needs a second coach free to run it. What the backs work on should tie back to whichever block is running (see block1-overview.html for how a given block applies this — e.g. Block 1 keeps the backs' work in line with the defence theme).
• We're unlikely to have enough forwards out on a Thursday to field two complete 8-man packs. Plan contested/live scrum work for Sundays only; Thursday scrum sessions stick to the engage sequence, body position/tower of power, and controlled (non-contested, single-pack) pushing.

Session plans should therefore default to a single plan with clear forwards/backs (or skill-level) breakout options built in, rather than assuming a full Blue vs. White squad split every time.

How sessions should be coached

• Sessions run in 6-week themed blocks.
• Whole–part–whole applies within every single session, not just across a block. Each session should bookend a short, focused skill fix with game-play. Game-zone and skill-zone can be structured in any of three ways, whichever suits that session's plan best: run them sequentially (game, then a short skill fix, then back into the game — or skill fix first, then game); run the skill zone in parallel as a pull-out from the game, with a coach rotating small groups out for their fix and straight back in while the game keeps going for everyone else (needs at least 2 coaches to split game/skill-zone duty — see Coaches below); or use a brief whole-group coach intervention — a coaching point delivered to everyone before the game starts, for something every player needs to hear once (e.g. lineout positioning), as distinct from a specialist-only skill zone (e.g. hookers on the throw) run separately. None of the three is the mandatory default; pick whichever fits the session's content and the group sizes involved. Don't front-load a block with pure skill work and save the games for later weeks — every session, from week 1 onwards, needs strong game-play, however the skill zone is structured around it.
• Skill zones should be short and sharp, not long isolated drilling — remember these are 13-year-olds, and isolated skill blocks get dull fast. Keep skill-zone time tight (a matter of minutes, high-rep, clearly tied to a specific fix), whichever of the three shapes above is used.
• Sessions should be very active and fun. No boring coach-talking time, no standing in queues, no long unbroken drilling — games and adaptive/conditioned play should be the majority of session time, with variety and a pace that keeps players moving and genuinely enjoying themselves, not just physically active. Use conditions and rule tweaks on the game to shape practice of the target skill (e.g. a scoring bonus for using it, a constraint that forces it) rather than relying on repetitive isolated drills to teach it.
• Build week to week, with progression. Sessions within a block should reuse and build on the same activities rather than starting fresh each week — e.g. the same game returns with the constraint tightened, the space reduced, or the next layer of the skill added, so players get repetition without it feeling repetitive.
• Less time explaining, more time doing. Coach explanations should be as short as possible; prioritise players getting reps in over coaches talking.
• Thursdays follow a consistent opening format (player-led warm-up, then essential handling/tackling skills) before the rest of the session — see Training & Fixtures above.
• Always run the two-minute contact warm-up before any contact. See Contact warm-up below. It applies to every piece of contact work, closed skills included — tackle technique, scrum engage, contact games — on Sundays and Thursdays alike. The player-led warm-up (see warmup.html) finishes on the pads, which warms the body for contact — but a shield is not a tackle, so these two minutes still run before any tackling.
• Thursdays are contact-light, not no-contact. Closed skills in the skill zone (e.g. tackle technique, scrum engage) are fine at full contact — that's small-group, controlled, coach-supervised work. But the main adaptive game on Thursdays should mostly be touch-only, either touch throughout or touch that progresses to full contact for roughly the last 10 minutes. Full-contact adaptive games are more of a Sunday thing, where there's more space and time to manage it properly.

Contact warm-up

Two minutes, every time, before anyone makes contact. Three stages, always in this order, never skipping ahead: get the body into position, then two contact games that get hands on an opponent and the heart rate up. Games rather than drills — two minutes of queuing to hit a pad prepares nobody, and these get every player working for the whole two minutes.

Then, and only then, into the drill or game proper.

Both games have hard rules. Pummelling: no lifting, no takedowns, no twisting anyone's neck — it is an arm battle, not a wrestle to the floor. Wrist Wrestle: shoulder or upper arm only as a target, never the head or face, and it stops the moment either player lets go. Anyone who would rather not play the slapping game does a second round of pummelling instead — offer that up front rather than making someone ask for it.

• Pair by size. Not by friendship, and not whoever is standing nearest.
• Never skip stages, however short of time you are. If there isn't two minutes, there isn't contact — take it out of the session instead.
• Anyone returning from injury, or new to the group, starts at stage 1 and joins the games only when a coach says so, regardless of what everyone else is doing.
• The tackle cues aren't rehearsed here any more — low, shoulder contact, squeeze get coached in the tackle work itself. These two minutes are about getting warm, getting hands on someone, and arriving at the drill already switched on.
• If contact groups rotate through a skill zone, each group runs the two minutes as it arrives — the group that has been jogging in a handling game is no more contact-ready than the one that just walked off the touchline.

Skills pyramid

Coaching builds up through four layers, each resting on the one below it — useful for placing any given piece of session content and for judging whether a block/week is weighted appropriately for where the squad is:

1. Individual skills — catch, pass, throw, tackle, etc. — the technical building blocks every player needs, regardless of position.
2. Small-group skills — miss-pass, switch, Hulk, etc. (see playbook.html's Backs Moves and Open Play calls) — 2–3 players combining individual skills into a coordinated action.
3. Team moves — coordinated moves involving most/all of the team, e.g. the 5-man Rhino lineout strike move, DSP off scrum (see playbook.html).
4. Team strategy & tactics — how those moves get selected and sequenced within a game plan, e.g. block themes (see block1-overview.html), kicking strategy, defensive system.

Early blocks/weeks weight toward the base of the pyramid (individual and small-group skills); later ones build upward toward team moves and tactics, once the layers below are solid enough to support them — this is the same whole–part–whole logic applied above within a single session, just at the scale of a block.

Resources

• therugbysite.com — subscription currently expired but will be reinstated; treat as an available source for drills/session material once active again.
• Scrum machine — available at the club, but not at the 4G (TWGSB). Scrum body-position/engage work using the machine is a Sunday (home) session option, not a Thursday one — see block1-overview.html for how scrum skill-zone work is planned around this.
• Equipment available: balls, bibs, cones, poles, ruck shields, swiss balls, footballs.
• activities.html — a bank of previously used games/drills, organised by zone type and tagged by skill focus. Check it before inventing a new drill for a session plan.
• ref/ — reference material: Lineout FAQ.pdf (law/mechanics questions), plus the neurodiversity guidance linked above (Autism in Rugby.pdf, ADHD in Rugby.pdf).

Coaches

• 8 coaches in total.
• At least 2 are present at every session, usually more — normally enough to run the main game plus one or two rotating skill zones alongside it, when that's the chosen structure (see How sessions should be coached above).
• We have specialist forwards coaches and specialist backs coaches.