Before I begin, let me reiterate that I am by no means a level 3 or 4 coach. I did a 3 week coaching course because I wanted to coach juniors at club level.
Following on from some of your previous threads, I agree with you all wholeheartedly regarding the SA coaching style.
From my practical experience as a club player and as a coach and as a staunch follower of local rugga, there is a common thread amongst 90% of our coaches.
The inherent "koppe stamp" (head stomping) mentality of our coaches goes way back to the mid to late 20th century where coaches used to instruct players to smash anything that stands in their way by means of fist, knee or studs!
That type of mentality hasn't wavered much, though there have been attempts by some of our younger club and provincial coaches to become a bit more scientific and 3 dimensional.
One of the few SA schools who seem to have adapted to the modern game is Bishops. I love watching them play at festivals every year. It's like watching a 30 man game of touch rugby. Kudos to their coaching staff for encouraging their players to be expressive on the field and not worry about the result, but more about the kind of game they play.
I am not going to mention a single provincial coach's name in my article as the purpose of it is not to entice an argument as to who is the best or worst coach, but to try and open up a conversation about "where to next"?
I attended a middle class public school in Johannesburg and was coached by a former Transvaal and Golden Lions rugby player Calla Niemend. As a matriculant, I played hooker and weighed 82kg's.
I was a fairly skillful and crafty hooker, but was by no means a giant! I played A team from 8th grade.
Now Niemand (a beast at 135kgs), never gave me a chance to don the 1st team jersey. Why? Because I was 5kg's ligher than the next hooker.
A year later I went on to play club rugby and did so for the next 7 years. I played 1st XV most of the time (I got my weight up to 95kg's).
What occured to me throughout my rugby career was that every single coach that I played for, with 1 exception, had the same philosophy... moer hulle stukkend, en fok hulle op (beat them till they break and fuck them up)!
And so when I was done with my playing career I decided to try my hand at coaching.
In my first season, I coached an U19 side. I tried the same philosophies and methods that my coaches had used with me. I even copied their training regime. We had a fairly successful year. 8 wins and 6 losses which placed us 4th on the log.
The next year I was put in charge of the same squad who were now U20's.
I wanted to win the league with my team this year, but I knew we'd have to try something different as we had some impressive opponents.
And so it got me thinking... It was time disband koppe stamp.
During our preseason, I introduced 1 new drill. Instead of using tackle bags just to practice tackling skills, we started using them as opponent (would be) tacklers and staggered about 20 of them accross 30 x 30 meters. The aim was to get 5 players to run across the 30 meters at full speed at different angles and different lines trying to AVOID what was in front of them. (I'm not saying that I invented this drill, but I had never met another coach who had ever used it)
That invited some creativity to our training sessions. We put together another 6 attacking drills which with the sole purpose of MISSING and AVOIDING the would be tacklers instead of "koppe stamping" them.
The guys thrived on it and made training a lot more fun and the guys wanted to go on for longer to see the different kinds of lines and angles they could run at to achieve the same purpose. To get over the try-line.
We obviously still kept a lot of the core coaching techniques... but the difference was those 6 or 7 creative attacking drills which we thumped out for 7 months.
By the end of that year, my squad had lost 1 match by 2 points (our 1st choice kicker broke his collarbone in the first half). We won the league hands down.
What I did not mention was that my heaviest forward weighed 102kgs and my first choice hooker weighed 82.
For personal reasons I had to stop coaching the following year. Though I regret it every day that I wake up, as it is a passion of mine.
I'm writing this not for any self gratification or reward, but I really would love to see some of our professional and well trained junior coaches embrace the modern game.
In South Africa, we have an abundance of gold and mineral wealth.... but even more than that, we have been blessed with the natural, powerful athletes that flow in and out of the system each and every year. Even with our narrow mindedness, we still have some of the best school boy rugby in the world.
Now just imagine how much better we could be!
Flashdakota
Club Pro805 posts
Club Pro805 posts
20 Jul 2014, 23:27
#1
20 Jul 2014, 23:27#1
