High School Rugby Coaching Strategy

I blogged about being a rugby coach in my B651P Decision Modeling course portfolio last year, and I'm happy to report that this coming season will be Campbell High School's fourth consecutive year with a rugby club. And with me as a coach...yay!

In my post, Decision Making in Sports 1: To Pick and Pop or To Hit and Rip, I proposed an application of a continuity decision tree that I posted on my old site. Alarming how much it looks like a sequential game tree turned on its side. Don't bother downloading the one on the link, I've created a new SDA Continuity Decision Tree which also includes a model of the Collective Action game that happens twice a week when we're practicing during the season. Every practice's attendance is based on the perception of the number of attendees at that practice. There are two equilibria (places where the line passes the 45-degree red line) which represent the 5 or 6 die-hard core rugby players which keep the team going, and the other occurs at the 22-man mark where it's harder to concentrate on individuals' form and accomplishments. The players really crave constructive feedback, especially since they're just learning the game. My job as a coach is to build numbers early in the season to get to that second equilibria, then balance fun games versus skill building to offset injuries and dropouts while maintaining our competitiveness.

I eventually intend to use this PPT in conjunction with some techniques I learned from Paul Turner and Leigh Jones from Newport Gwent Dragons last summer when they visited the Atlanta area. They developed a form of practice planning that incorporates three or four "units" per practice involving "bible skills," essentially the non-decision boxes in blue. In rugby our coaching mantra is

A skill is a technique practiced over and over until it becomes a reflex. Employing skill in strategy and creativity is when rugby really becomes the ultimate game.