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PLAYERS STRUGGLE TO KEEPTHEIR POSITIONS ON PITCH. ?

PLAYERS STRUGGLE TO KEEPTHEIR POSITIONS ON PITCH. My young team of 11 to 13 year olds struggle to hold position on the pitch, with a stand off ending up on the wing, the winger ending up at scrum half etc! How can I help them to keep their positions?

Rugby CoachCoach

2 answers

ANSWERS

Simon JonesCoach, England

Douglas,

With this age group it can be a good thing that the players interchange position during play. They will need to get into their positions at restarts and set pieces but other than that as long as they understand the need to move the ball away from rucks and mauls quickly it will very good for their development as players if they interchange.

It will help if you coach the 9 and 10 to understand that they are responsible for directing play and this should encourage them, at least, to get into position.

You might practise the whole teams positional sense by making a game of them getting into proper positions. Blow your whistle and count out loud until everyone is in place. See if they can beat their previous time!

Good luck

Simon

Josh MacyCoach, United States of America

I agree with Simon on the positives of having players interchanging fluently. At that age, it's the concept that matters. Toss a ball to a part of the pitch and call out a situation. Scrum, ruck, maul, line-out, etc and encourage them to get into position. Games like this are great to reinforce your team concepts as well by asking why players went where they did. You can reinforce this further by unopposed practice, and setting up your halves to really buy into their position. After they understand the importance they won't want anyone else in their spot and everyone else will fall in line.