Challenges faced by school rugby coaches
Rugby Culture and Infrastructure
In the few schools where there is a strong rugby culture and well-established infrastructure, the coach’s responsibilities are significantly reduced from a logistical angle. These institutions often have the necessary facilities and resources, talent, strong junior structure, discipline and support systems in place, making the coaching process more streamlined.
In schools which do not have the standard resources, a large part of his time is spent by the coach to make sure the logistics are organised to run smoothly. From making sure that there is a ground to train on, pushing the players to be punctual for training, transportation to the ground and back, listing out the equipment including medical equipment that needs to be taken to the ground and back, informing the physiotherapist the location of training, finding a place on the ground to do the strapping as well as many more unexpected logistical challenges become part of the coach’s responsibility.
This leads to a considerable part of the coach’s time being diverted from focusing on the main job at hand which is to improve the rugby skills of his players. Where the schools have the necessary infrastructure in place, the coach has more time to focus on developing the rugby skills of his players and producing a strong team.
Ground
If you look at the 14 teams competing this year in the ‘A’ division it is only Royal, Trinity and St. Peter’s that have a proper rugby ground to train. The rest of the schools have a ground which might not be very conducive for regular contact training due to lack of grass, uneven grounds or a cricket ground that is not available most of the season or no ground at all. Having a ground available is a massive advantage to a coach over teams that do not have one. Not having a ground available makes it extremely hard for the coach to plan a structured weekly training session due to having to find a suitable ground to train day in day out through the season.
Gym
The schools that do not have a ground, also find their strength and conditioning sessions that much more difficult as sometimes the ground training and gym are in two completely different locations. In a school setting, having the gym sessions prior to the skills training is less of a burden on the players and parents.
Having the gym session and the ground session at completely different times is problematic since students have to grapple with studies and tuition classes and parents have to pick up and drop their kids at different times and locations.
Competition drives performance
A coach having a large pool of talent to choose from is a good situation for a coach to be in since competition drives performance. It will push each player to work harder and train harder and thus improve the overall performance of the team.
The downside to having competition within the squad in a school’s team is that when the season starts the coach will have to face displeasure from many parents of the players in the squad who could not make it to the starting lineup. Parents who have influence within the school can also make life very difficult for the coach if their child is not selected to the team.
School coaches with less player competition in their team face less parental pressure. The pressure to win is relatively much less since the coach is given more space by the school management to improve the team’s performance during the season.
In such teams the few star players in the team could have the tendency to slack at training as well as poor player attendance for training is common in these cultures. The coach sometimes faces the dilemma in these situations of dropping the star player to send a strong message, that team comes first and improving the rugby culture of the school in the long run, but short term results could also suffer which may even result in the coach even losing his job.
Luxury of time
The schools with a strong rugby culture would usually have most players participating in only rugby as a sport. That gives the coach enough time to improve the players’ physically and skill wise in the off season, while constantly fine tuning skills in season. In schools which have players playing multiple sports, the time the coach has with players is often limited. Sometimes it could be as little as having the player once a week for training or the player only showing up for the match on game day due to other sports commitments. This gives the coach very little or no time to work with the player at an individual level.
A coach of a renowned rugby school would have access to his players for anything between 15 to 25 hours a week. In the case of a school which does not have a strong rugby culture the coach may have only between four to six hours a week with a player. For a school which has multiple sports athletes, it can even be less than two hours a week with a player.
Injuries
Injuries are an inevitable aspect of rugby. Once again the teams with stronger player depth in the squad deal with injury challenges better due to adequate replacements being available in the squad. Also the schools that have a stronger medical set up with sports doctors and physios recover and manage injuries better compared to a school who may not have the financial backing to ensure proper injury rehabilitation.
‘No one is interested in the labour pains. They just want to see the baby’
The above quote from a former baseball player is very applicable to most school rugby teams in Sri Lanka.
Analysing what a team is doing right or wrong on game day is the easy part. I dare say there are many past players and spectators who analyse rugby games better than many professional school coaches. But rectifying mistakes from game to game and getting the team to play as a cohesive unit is a much tougher task than analysing a game, particularly for the coaches who face logistical challenges mentioned above and don’t have the luxury of time with their players. People only come and see the movie on game day but don’t understand the numerous challenges coaches face during the training week when trying to prepare their team to play to their potential.
Bilal Yusuf is an experienced rugby and strength and conditioning coach. He is also the founder of Athlete Unleashed, which is
Sri Lanka’s first ever High Performance Training Center. Bilal can be contacted at athleteunleashed@gmail.com