How I approach coaching contact
Here's my current working process. Viewing contact in levels has helped me and given players autonomy.
Contact can be daunting for new players. It can also be stressful for coaches. Coaches have a duty of care for their players.
However, contact can also be empowering. Used in the right way, contact training can create confident players.
The language that coaches use matters. We have the potential to break down the tackle for players. Instead of it potentially being something scary, players can see it in managable chunks.
In the women’s team I coach, I have a variety of abilities and knowledge of the game. Some people have watched the game before, some have played the game before, most started their rugby obsession by joining the team.
Contact is often first viewed as something binary, it’s all or nothing. Contact or no contact. However, this is not the case. There’s stages to it and each one is important. It’s also not about ticking off each stage and never returning, I’ve found that revisiting stages is just as crucial.
Levelling up or down
There may be some weeks when players don’t want to engage in as much contact or, on the flipside, one week they may feel ready to progress.
Create a language where people feel comfortable to move up or down the contact scale.
I view it as levels. When running a contact activity (I’ll go more into what I mean by those later), I’ll ask people to work with a teammate who’s the same contact level as them.
I give people options of level 1, 2 and 3. 3 is the most confident contact level, 1 is for people newer to contact or not wanting to be as physical during the activity.
I encourage people to discuss with their teammates about their level of comfort during contact. This has helped players encourage each other, giving them a boost of confidence during contact and support.
I also break down coaching contact into different levels. I mentioned that it’s not a binary process, players aren’t either doing full contact or not.
There’s different stages that I use. Although they are numbered, I return to each level regularly. It’s not a tick box exercise.
Level 1: Non contact
Believe it or not, players are developing contact skills when participating in non contact activities.
It’s about framing an activity in the right way. Again, language matters. In a non contact game of touch, players are working on tracking. This is the first stage of the tackle, as defined by the brilliant World Rugby Tackle Ready resource.
Tracking is the ability to get close to the ball carrier and close down their space. You can add a range of constraints to the defender to also replicate some tackle movements. This could include a two-handed touch tackle around the waist.
For the past few months, I’ve been loving a tag format as a non contact option that’s improving players’ contact skills. I’ve found it’s helped the attackers be more skillful about space:
Give all players a bib, they must tuck the bib in their shorts. The bib must be long enough for players to grab.
Play a game of tag rugby.
If the defender pulls the ball carrier’s tag out, they shout “tag”.
The ball carrier stops and pass the ball to a teammate.
The defender hands the tag back to the player.
I’ve found that players became more aware of their body when carrying the ball towards defenders. Some looked to rotate or spin their body.
When running this game, I spoke to players about “attacking the edges” or “attacking the fringes of the player”. This means running at the spaces in between players, or just at the edges of the defender instead of straight towards them.
Level 2: Pre-Contact
This stage covers alot. Often in activities that teammates can complete in pairs. I’ve used World Rugby’s Contact Confident resource for this. It’s aimed at female rugby players and explores a range, including neck stablisation.
I love it. I use the animal movements alot, including the bearcrawl. (see video below from World Rugby)
Contact Confident have broken the activities into levels, so you can build a program that gradually improves players skills and strength over time. The levels also helps you as a coach.
I’ve used some of the activities, including the head reaction exercises (see below).
It’s important that these exercises get built into a programme. Like any other skill or game, players need time to practice it. Results won’t appear instantly. Repetition is key.
When introducing these activities to the team for the first time I added them as a seperate section into training. This gave people the time and space to get familiar with the exercises.
Now I use them as part of a warm up or before a section of contact. I also use alot of the Contact Confident resource during the team’s summer Bootcamp.
I use different ‘contact preparation exercises’ in the latter stages of a training warm up. This won’t always preceed a contact activity, but it introduces some of the body positioning and tactical thinking that contact requires.
I’ve found that this treats contact as not something that’s big and scary, but as a skill that’s filled with lots of enjoyable and accessible acivities.
It’s important to have activities you can modify so that players can drop down a level, and they feel safe and supported to make that decision.
‘Wrestle/Tap’ are two activities you can use that contain two different levels of contact engagement. Players find a partner that’s a similar level to them. These may be familar as they’re now common rugby contact activities.
Level 1: Players have to tap their partner’s knees, whilst avoiding their own knees being tapped. As a coach I place emphasis on getting into a low body position.
Level 2: Players each wear a sock or a headband around their leg. Players aim to remove their partners headband, whilst keeping their’s on.
These two levels can be done together or seperate, and they don’t have to preceed a ‘contact’ section. They could fit into any session as a small element of contact to give your players a chance to work on their skills and be competitive in a 1v1 situation.
Another pairs activity that involves more grappling work is a ‘bearcrawl push’. One player gets into a bearcrawl position and the other player has to try and move them.
However, before attempting this activity. I had done some groundwork with the majority of the group. This included lots of conversations around the contact levels.
This has helped players find the right level for them and have chats with their partner before an activity about where they are and what they’re feeling.
I had also done some prior bearcrawl work. Players had an awareness of the bearcrawl position, why it’s important and what a good bearcrawl looks like.
Level 3: Stages of the Tackle
Within this phase I directly refer to World Rugby’s Tackle Ready resource. It breaks down the tackle into 5 stages: tracking, preparation, connection, acceleration and finish.
Each stage of the tackle has numerous activities you can use within your sessions. I find these are helpful to use as small exercises, either as a stand alone tackle focus or as part of a contact section.
I like to use several of the exercises including ‘Square Up Acceleration’ and ‘Dip Time’ in the later stages of a warm up. They help as short contact check in exercises, to continue to build confidence.
I like Dip Time because I now have a visual reference for when to dip when making a tackle. Before we did the dip exercise, I was dipping too soon and my tackles were not right. Now, I think, my tackles are more effective because I picture where I need to dip and I do it at the right time.” - A player.
I’ve used the resource in a number of different ways. This includes using the exercises in small sections.
I’ve also used it across a number of weeks. Each training session has had a portion of the session dedicated to one of the 5 stages of tackling.
One of my favourite ways is within a specalist tackle training session. In these sessions players complete activities from each of the stages.
It’s important when running this session or any that features the tackle ready activities, to outline what stage the players are working on and how it will help them.
Level 4: Modified games
These are games that have controlled contact aspects to them. Returning to the orginal principles of giving players choice.
If a player is non-contact for any reason, they can participate in all other aspects of these games, but they’ll still be fully active as players.
It means that if someone is new they can see the contact, before they take part in it.
One of my favourites is Hugby. I’ve often run this after focusing on tracking and connection.
Hugby has similar rules to a game of touch rugby. However, instead of a touch tackle, the defender performs a low grab/connection around the waist.
The grab is held for 3 seconds, the defender then releases the ball carrier and the ball carrier plays the ball.
They can play it through a present on the floor, pop up off the floor or a pass.
I’ve often started this game as a walking hugby. This allows players to focus on the connection and safety.
I’ve then increased speed depending on the players. As a progression, you can have the ball carrier offload the ball during the grab.
I’ve run ruck games where the tackles have been touch, the ball carrier presents the ball on the ground. A contested 1v1 ruck then takes place.
This helps players with their rucking skills, including body positioning. It also helps them get familiar with falling safely and presenting the ball.
“Breaking it into stages was helpful for me. I like the rucks in a touch match as it’s faster paced than contact, but gets you used to joining them quickly and then getting back up to get back into the game” - A player
You can also restart a game of touch with some contact. This could be a ball rip, whoever wins starts with the ball. It could also be a wrestle activity.
This is my current working process. Like always, I’m looking for ways to improve it or change it depending on the team I’m coaching.