The Rugby Coaches Blog: Climbing ladders to success

Climbing ladders to success!

Have you see this post?

So whats it all about? Its a session plan, but using visuals clues, this engaged the players who had to try and work out what the session was going to entail. This gave them a special unlock.

The session consisted of lots of hands practise, targets within the games (using night club clickers), skills to practise and lots of problem solving. I go on about problem solving alot. Any idea why?

Well, as coaches we are responsible for developing players - we need to make sure what we do during coaching sessions and coaching seasons enables all the players to achieve their best at their level.

In addition to this, the more problems the players solve on the training pitch the stronger transfer during the game. "No plan survives contact with the enemy" this is such a good motto to work with.

Now don't get me wrong I am not saying we should have "plans" but what I am saying is if we focus SOOOOOOOO much on the plan, what happens when we face oppositions that stop the plan happening? or what happens when we can not put the plan into force? Think England Vs Italy "Ruckgate"

This is exactly why we have to equip players with the skills to adapt and "play what they see" and this does not mean this applies only to youth sport. It applies to all ages and sex groups.

Don't forget the best way to enable the players to practise these skills is

CARDS 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

So let me introduce a game which enables you to implement CARDS within your planning and also gives huge amounts of opportunity for players to practise within a games context.

Its called Ladders!

However, this one maybe a little different to what you know ladders to look like.

So what do you need?

Full size pitch (ideally)

Clickers

Bibs

and balls.

Split the players into four groups, the attacking group with a higher amount of players and than the three defending groups.

Lets say you set it out like this:

Attack - 12

First D - 8

Second D 10

Third D 11 (or you could switch this around?)

Using these waves will help to develop the A and the D of CARDS Awareness and Decision Making, in particular - but it will also help with the CRS 👊👊👊

So back to the game:

This is a picture of the lay out of the pitch:

What happens next is displayed in this gif 👇👇👇👇👇

Now lets get into the details of this game, as the gif explains the set up and start, I thought it would be good to share some of the constraints I placed on the game and the players:

1, Time, the attacking team only had a set amount of time to score

2, Time, the defending team had to roll out the clock by being disruptive.

3, Lives, the attacking team had a set amount of lives (agree at the beginning of the session)

4, Phases, the attacking team had a set amount of phases to score or complete the game.

5, Secret missions, each defending team had a very specific target for example, play a drift defence, whilst calling a blitz (Thanks Rusty).

This list is not exhaustive, for more information and the session plan, sign up and I can send it over.

The attacking team had to "complete" the field and if the defending #beatthegame then the attacking team got an opportunity to review and change the behaviour.

🚨🚨🚨🚨 This game comes with a warning, it can become very stressful when you are fitting in to being comfortable with uncomfortable, warn the players before that this will challenge them. 🚨🚨🚨🚨

Some additional targets we put in place for individuals: how many tackles can you make? How many carries and one the players decided and really loved was how many rucks you can disrupt! 👮 Call the ruck police! someone is bending the law 😂

Feedback from the players was positive:

comments along the lines of:

"this was one of the most challenging games I have ever played"

"This is hands down the best game I have ever played, I have never had to think so much in all my rugby career"

Areas of development:

"When the attacking team found it hard to by pass the first or second wave of D it meant that the last line of defenders, were hanging around" It also meant they hadn't managed to change their behaviour.

Upon reflection, I have decided that because of the amount of players, what we should have implemented was the last set of D could have been playing there own game for example a small sided rucking ball game. This is why reflection is so important and look forward to trying this out.

So to sum this post up, its ladders but not as you know it - Ladders with games and targets within the game and players having to #beatthegame.

Experiential learning is so important and this game lives that - the overall session outcomes are available via our session plan and you can download that by signing up. If you like what we are doing, why not buy us a coffee?