Developing a Strategy

The paragraph is based on a paper that has been prepared by Geoff Cooke, the former England Team Manager and I added my own experiences.

We will each have our own philosophy on coaching - how we coach and why we coach; what we regard as good coaching/bad coaching; effective/ineffective instruction. A coach might be described as a font of knowledge; knowledge that is not of value to him or herself but of value to the players they are assisting. Our effectiveness as coaches might be determined by how that knowledge is selected and utilised to assist the development of our players. What do I know and how do I get it across.

As a result you have to ask yourself: "What do I know about the game"? What a coach has to work at any significant level is a basic and fundamental understanding of the game they are coaching.

Top down: you must understand: How to play How to get the players to play

Bottom-up: know your players: Get to know your players, their personalities, their needs and how to meet them. Know yourself, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses.

Geoff Cooke confessed that he could never coach like others but equally others could never coach like him. I feel we have to understand our own strengths and weaknesses as coaches, what techniques work for us, our players and how best we can maximise our effectiveness with them. This process can be broken down into:

• Strategy
• Tactics
• Attitudes to selection
• Control
• Areas of the field
• Other factors

Strategy
This refers to the style of play which all players need to understand and should be capable of putting into operation. It is usually determined by strengths and weaknesses of units or groups of players. Examples:

• Soccer - Brazil / Spain / Italy / France / Germany
• Hockey - India / Pakistan / Holland / Australia
• Rugbv - Australia / New Zealand / France / England

Tactics
The means by which a given strategy is deployed. This will involve the organisation and execution of skills during a game in response to recurrent situations. Decisions will have to be made and options chosen within the framework of the understood strategy. Any choice of strategy has a relationship to selection and selection policy.

• Select best players available and decide strategy
• Decide strategy and select players to implement
• Select "certainties" - decide strategy on their qualities and then select the rest to compliment

Attitudes to selection
Coaches are far more ready to point out areas of weakness than they are to recognise "star quality". Consequently, we often pick players to do a job and then drop them because they are unable to do other things rather than selecting players for known qualities - letting them know what they are in the side to do and then creating the platform for them to do it. In selecting players we might consider:

• a description of his tasks and responsibilities
• are selected players complimentary?
• compatibility
• continuity
• captaincy?

Having resolved a selection policy the evolution of the teams’ basic playing strategy can only evolve once players are aware of the basic principles of playing the game. Some basic principles are:

• Go Forward
• Support
• Continuity
• Pressure
• Communication

Control
Games can be viewed within three distinct phases:

• Winning the ball - kick off / scrum / line out / from opposition in open play
• Keeping the ball - by well-developed continuity skills
• Using the ball to overcome the defence - penetrate / outflank / kick over

Developing a Team Strategy
We have already said that the coach must have a fundamental understanding of the game. We can add to that a realisation of what the team needs to achieve.

The team strategy then becomes the means by which they achieve those aims. How do we do it? Who decides? The coach will need to lead the decision making process but it is vital to utilise the expertise of experienced players, other coaches/advisors and the team captain. It is the captain and the senior players / key decision makers who will make strategic decisions on the field of play. They need to be comfortable with the team strategy and confident of being able to execute the strategy with the team during the game. On a more tactical level all the players are involved - they should be trained to execute the team strategy. It will be based on known strengths within the team. The talents of your selected players will have to be continually developed to meet and possibly expand on the requirements of the understood strategy. The quality of the game your team can play is dictated by the thoroughness with which you have prepared individual players.

Areas of the Field
Next step is to ensure that the whole team understands their individual role within the strategy. This will also be conditioned by where the action is taking place within the field of play:

GENERAL STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS IN RELATION TO THE FIELD OF PLAY

THESE AREAS ARE APPROXIMATE

THESE CONSIDERATIONS ARE GUIDELINES

We should also consider play in terms of channels up and down the field: Attacking along various channels may open different options, but these may need to be balanced against the corresponding delay in the movement of supporting players to assist and continue attacks. Putting the two together we have a matrix, which allows the team reference Points (a road map) and should allow all players to know the range of actions the team might adopt.

Other Factors
In the context of a particular game the team must work to assert its strengths and to dominate through its strategy. This may need to be altered before or during a game in considering the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. USE PLAY TO YOUR EXPOSE ) THEIR WEAKNESSES STRENGTHS PROBE ) AVOID THEIR STRENGTHS

Other factors that have an impact on the strategy are:

• The weather
• The ground condition
• How long to go?
• Do we NEED a score?
• Do we NEED to hang on?
• The referee

Strategy and Tactics, Applying the theory
In seeking to execute your strategy and achieve your objectives in the various areas of the field you must give some thought to these four things:

1. The Creation and Use of Time and Space
2. Methods of Creating Space
3. Decision Making
4. Developing Decision Making

I will deal will them in more detail below.

The Creation and Use of Time and Space
Before an attack can out-maneuver a well organised defence your players must think in terms of creating space. Spaces exist - in front of, behind, over around and between defenders. We must educate players to:

• Recognise useful space (there are often large empty areas, which are of no use to an attack)
• Create enough space (attacks can become bogged down by having too little room in which to work)
• Creating space becomes more and more important, the more crowded and tight the situation
• Once space is created it must be used wisely and to the best advantage

Methods of Creating Space
Looking for space is important: this is where Pierre Villepreux asks: why go through the wall if you can go through the door? His dogma is to go through the space if there is any, penetrate and suck in defenders until space appears. Necessary skills for the tteam are then:

• Suck in defenders with working around the maul: drive - or - rolling maul and work around the ruck: pick-n-go. This is where you attack "from No.9".
• The ability to retain possession in contact.
• Stand deep enough to allow transport of the ball to that player who will carry the ball through space.
• Pulling it forwards and putting the ball in behind it (kicking strategy)
• Virtuoso performances: this is interesting point: would you have played Campese in your team: brilliance but also terrible mistakes and decisions that turn out terribly wrong?

Decision Making
What kind of decisions need to be made? Ithink we can distinguish two level. On a tactical level the different variations (within the strategic plan) will be selected throughout the game in response to a number of recurrent situations. We used to talk about Key Decision Makers (who did not read Greenwood?) but I believe everybody should involved. Who decides on a specific back-row move in the scrum? Surely the Fly-Half has a good overview of how the opposition back row is breaking away from the scrum and he should have valuable input to select the correct move. Bottom line it will be the Number Eight who will execute the start of the move who may have to decide quickly to abort. The new decision is then in the hands of the ball carrier. Players around him now need to REACT and change their actions accordingly. (This is what I like about rugby: you can practise what you want but in the end the player with the ball determines what will happen next...... )

There are times however when decisions may have to be adjusted as conditions change or as the score lines changes. The team moves to another gameplan.

The role of the coach within the game now becomes that of the Analyst to give feedback from the game and influence adjustment to the strategic plan or the technical variations within it.

1. Possession Count in different areas of the field

• Scrum
• Line Out
• Ruck / Maul
• Steady, in twice, wheeled, clean, driven etc.
• Won/lost,
• Backwards, forwards etc.

3. Ball Utilisation -how many balls delivered to playmakers and how did they use them.

4. What works for us - we can put all the above three together to see what particular aspects of the game we are good at, where we win the ball, where we are effective in the field and what moves tend to produce scores or gain ground.

Developing Decision Making
Make sure that players understand the strategy and have the ability to perform the skills required to implement it, they must be given opportunities to recognise their tactical options. You, as the imaginative coach, would be able to present relevant game situations and allow players to explore the various options open to them in those situations so that they will come to recognise them when they appear in the game and have developed the ability to select in a flash the appropriate option to take maximum advantage of the situation. This is more than doing set moves! This is why plays - set moves only work if presented in this context.

Reading of the Game can be natural or it can be learnt, but it must be developed if players are to play an authoritative part, in the widest sense, in directing the course of the game. Players need to know not just what to do but why it should be done - what is the consequence of their actions and what possibilities they might offer to team mates. You must try to get them to read the situation, see the gaps and utilise them. You must give them credit when this happens.

• Practice (small sided games)
• Pose problems (relevant situations, with limited options)
• Prod and prompt (them into decision making. Making no decision is always wrong in Rugby)
• Praise (when possible)
• Practical Work (Homework?)

(I hate it when people do this, but there you go: Geoff Cook's 5 Ps to developing decision making)

Framework: summarises your teams strategies (it may help to list their strengths and weaknesses first). Identify relevant situations in the game. Outline methods of deploying the strategy in these situations. List practices to improve decision-making in these areas, i.e. progress the practices from static closed, unopposed situations to the open, full opposed game situations.
You can best assist the player by observation of this learning cycle, provide feedback at the right time, and by demonstration.

Related topics

• Developing a strategy - building the gameplan
• Translation to work on the field - how to implement the gameplan into training exercises
• Role of the Captain
• Developing Decision Making
• Set Plays - why I am not too happy about this
• Geoff Cook's original document (the "uncensored" version of this page)
  

Last updated on 30-04-06