Rugby Games and Drills: Book Review
Rugby Games and Drills
Written by RFU National Academy Fitness Advisor Simon Worsnop this book has over 115 training exercises for improving technique, tactics and fitness.
The book is split into 10 chapters:
- Using Games and Drills
- Small sided handling games
- Small sided kicking games
- Attacking and Defending drills
- Bag and Shield drills
- Non-specific rugby games
- Small sided rugby games
- Large sided rugby games
- Fitness requirements for rugby
- Planning for the season
Each chapter has a variety of different drills, enabling the coach to keep sessions fresh, as well as covering a range of different scenarios to test skills in game specific situations. Each exercise also comes with variations in complexity, physicality and specificity.
The drills are set out clearly with both written instructions and visual diagrams to make it easy to follow, with objectives and key coaching points highlighted to maintain focus of the exercises.
Each exercise also has a suitability rating at the top of the page e.g. 12+ or All ages, however they are not necessarily in age order so finding an appropriate drill requires searching (although this is only a minor point, searching won’t take long).
For coaches and players who may be short on time (this is the real world) and need to train multiple skills in on session, e.g. half backs passing/kicking and back row forwards tackling, there is a useful ‘Game and Drill Finder’ at the start of the book which cross references each of the drills with all the skills being worked.
What could be better
The Chapter that lets this book down is the fitness requirements for rugby. There is a lot of detail about the requirements for rugby, from strength and power values to work capacity and speed.
Despite this, there is no practical advice for coaching these components. Simon touches briefly on using small sided games and technical drills to also develop work capacity; however the inclusion of general fitness work is also vital.
Some practical tips for strength training, starting from foundation exercises and gradually progressing, would have been a useful inclusion.
Summary
I would recommend this book for any coach of junior or senior rugby players looking to improve delivery of technical coaching, as the variety of drills and simplicity of explanations make it a very useful tool.
The Season Planning section would be extremely useful to coaches with information on long term planning (different phases of season) and short term planning (individual sessions), as well as written examples of each.
To read more of Simon’s insights into conditioning for Rugby, see here
See our full list of top books for rugby coaches
Matt Durber
Hello Matt,
Apart from James’s book, which is currently sitting on my book self, do you recommend any other rugby specific books which give more of a comprehensive fitness guide to rugby?
Many thanks
Brett
Hi Brett,
If you are coaching young athletes then James’s book is the way forward, as getting the fundamentals right and developing all round athleticism are much more important than specific fitness at that stage. Even if you are coaching older players, the foundations need to be set first before progressing to more specific training.
I have seen a couple of “rugby specific” fitness books but to be honest you need to think about player and position specificity rather than sport specific, which isnt covered in any book I have seen. Look at the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals and what components of fitness they require, then look for information from the experts in those fields, e.g. frans bosch for speed training, rather than generic plans.
Hope this helps,
Matt
HI Brett,
I agree with Matt, learn the variety of disciplines, then apply them to the player/ position that you have in front of you.
For example, some idea of grappling/ balance work is good for rugby, but that does not mean 4 hours of judo a week for rugby players.
You learnt quite a bit on the Level 2, it is the variations using those exercises that count. That depends on time, facilities and athlete age\ stage more than anything.
Also, look at the gymnasts, dancers, gridiron, sprinters, strongmen and parkour people for extremes of what can be done, then use that to help your players.
Thank you both for your replies
Cheers
Brett