The main problem is Ben’s overall skill and consistency, I am going to try and improve all aspects of his skill, and some of his fitness. To do this I will design a schedule of a 6 week program with 3 sessions per week, and hopefully this will improve Ben all round. I will achieve this by meeting up with Ben and doing these exercises or practices. We are doing rugby, I am watching and training Ben Allen, I will be training him on many aspect of play for the Full Back, and any other Back’s positions there is that Ben may play. Warm up exercises were done before all of the sessions to make sure no muscles were pulled.
The important skills that a Back rugby play would need are mainly speed, vision and overall ability and self confidence in their play, they would also need to be able to tackle and keep their defensive and offensive attacking positions on the pitch in the game of play, For various positions in the backs like Scrum Half, full back, and Fly Half they need to be able to have a very good kick, and very good vision to look and find the space to which they are going to kick to, They need to be good decision makers and able to decide on the best option for various different situation, and also have good fitness to keep them able to move and run for all of the game. Ben has many strengths in his play, he is quite good at decision making, he won’t run the ball if he has no support, or kick it away if there is the option of a good counter gap or if he can see space, He is able to when needed to kick the ball very accurately with a friar bit of power into a specific space, weather it be out of play, or a long drive into space on the pitch, he has good top pace, and good flexibility and agility to run and gain back yards, break tackles and continue running into space with good vision.
Ben’s main weakness is that he cannot always pass accurately and under pressure, he sometimes gives out a bad ball that sometimes can cost a lot of space and maybe even the possession of the ball, also his initial pace sometimes does not show enough to get him the time and room he needs, and it sometimes cost’s him his break away from the tackle. , also he shows towards the end a lack of fitness.
Many different methods could be used to improve Ben in his areas of weakness, he needs to improve his fitness over a long time, but also week by week improve his normal game ability, here is a 6 week program; Before we start the 6 week training program I went to watch Ben play in a proper game so that I could have a good start on bens current performance and so I could compare the is to a later re-evaluation. Week 1. Session 1; Start off by making Ben run around the rugby pitch a few times getting his fitness up a bit and then make him do some shuttle runs.
Session 2; Kick and chase exercise, I will kick the ball long and low, Ben’s job will be to chase it pick up the ball and run it back to me, I will do this 5 times. We continue on to high kicks to make Ben more able and confident in catching the ball when it is high in the air. Session 3; We will study tapes of Full Back performances in games and their techniques to further enhance Ben’s understand of his role in the game at the full back position. This week Ben showed some good potential but not a lot of improvement, but I believe with more work progress will be made. Week 2. Session 1; A Street jog around the town. Session 2; Passing Drill, Ben would stand with the ball in front of him and he would have to pass it to me to where I was standing
Session 3; We study more videos of players in the backs, to see how Ben should play to each other specific position in a game. Ben improved his fitness levels and his understanding of positions, I think we need to move onto harder training. Week 3. Session 1; We will Work on fitness again with shuttle runs and a few lap exercises. Session 2; Passing drill, same as before Ben will have the ball but this time he would have to pass me the ball when I was also moving. Session 3; Tackling Practice, Ben would have to attempt to tackle me while I was holding a tackle bag. Ben showed even more improvement in his fitness and passing of the ball. Week 4. Session 1; Ben will go for an hour cycle ride around the town, help his fitness to stay as good as it is, if not improve.
Session 2; Practicing Ben’s kicking, I would stand in various positions and Ben would have to aim to kick the ball right to me, yes in a game he would usually kick it into space, but this is a accuracy training. Session 3; tacking hits, I would tackle Ben when he had the ball to see if he could keep hold of it. Bens kicking was better then when I first watched him play and he took hits a lot better Week 5. Session 1; Ben will have a 10 meter wide space for him to try and get past me, I also will bring a friend to act as a extra attacker, Ben could either dummy the pass, or pass it, but he had to draw the man if he was going to pass it. Session 2; Ben will be the defender, me and an extra person will have to try and get past him, and Ben will have to try to tackle the player with the ball.
Session 3; Ben will do some Decision making exercises, he would get the ball and I will shout out the current situation of defenders, he would then have to decide weather to pass, kick, or run the ball. Bens understanding of the game has improved gradually, he can make most decisions independently and quickly. Week 6. Session 1; Ben will train with the local team, doing many similar exercise’s he had done with me. Session 2; Ben will join in with an internal game Session 3; Ben will play in a game against another team, he will be put to the test in many areas of what we had worked on in the previous 6 weeks. Bens overall game play since I first watched him has improved a lot.
I went to watch Ben play rugby again in a match, his all round play and various skills have improved a lot, he has gained a lot more fitness and looks a lot more in with the game even with the last few minutes of the game left, he also reads the game better and is able to make a lot better decisions. Their will be many negative and positive factors to affect performance, if the day is a dry day and warm, it may help Ben to not fall over, but if it is too hot or too sunny it may not help Ben when catching the ball and running may dehydrate him quicker, but if it is raining then he may fall over, or possibly not be able to see the ball as easily or it may be to wet to keep hold of.
Also the time of playing, is it dark and are we playing in floodlights, of is it daytime, also bens clothing may help or hinder him, some may help to keep him from pulled muscles and strains, but make him not able to stretch his leg out fully and slow him down. After 6 weeks of training Ben has improved in many area’s, he is now able to run for longer and harder, and his accuracy of passing has improved enormously, also in his strengths their has been some improvement, he can now make decisions even better, he rarely now makes wrong decisions, but he has made little improvement in his initial speed, it seems that he will need to work on that a bit more before we can see improvement, but his fitness has improved greatly, he now seems to look fine and run as hard and fast as at the start of the game, and at the end of the game.
Ben’s vies on the training, He enjoyed doing the training and believes he has gained a lot more skill and fitness out of it, he would have liked to add more game play into it but understands the principle of person to person training, he has come to the conclusion that he has benefited from this training a lot any thinks it will help his future game play immensely. Mt final conclusion is that after this week program Ben has gained a lot of fitness and skill in his game, on various parts and all round play, if he was to continue this for longer it would help him immensely and keep him in top shape and vastly improve his game play and rugby ability.