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Brian Mcleish's avatar

Well this is timely - I (and my fellow age-group coaches) are going to be starting tackle training with our eager young team in a month or so.

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Jess Bunyard's avatar

Exciting times for them! What do you think the challenges and positives will be?

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Brian Mcleish's avatar

I think a lot of it will be tailored to the individual player. Some of them (including my daughter) will need to have their enthusiasm directed appropriately (i.e. you are tackling people, not trying to kill them!) so they don't go over the line and for others it will be about encouraging them to not hang back and get involved.

I think the main challenge will be about developing the right attitude in the team - to "learn to love" tackling. The technical aspects are, in my opinion, downstream from that (I could be talking nonsense of course - I started coaching when my daughter was 5 and have gone up the age grades with her so this is my first time coaching tackling). Linked to the attitude is the change of mindset from individual defence to team defence (started doing some of that at the moment but it is a slow process!)

I think a big positive is that at the moment, at P3 with touch rugby, we have a few speedsters who are, essentially, getting all the ball time. Once we bring in contact, it opens the game up more for everyone.

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