Circle The Critical Stuff

Following practices, you often hear coaches say “I needed more time.” “I needed more time for that drill.” “I needed more time for that game.” “If we just had a couple more minutes, the players would have got that.” And quite often the solution is to start practices earlier, or stretch them out slightly longer. And what was once a 60 minute session, is now a 90 minute session… Or longer!

But adding more activities, drills, team runs, reps, white board sessions, or even additional practice sessions is not the answer! The key is to prioritise. If everything is important, then nothing is important. Rugby coach guru Mike Cron sums it up well.

“Every coach wants more time, but you don’t have more time. The key is to write down what you want to achieve, then circle the 1, 2 or 3 critical outcomes and nail those.”

This is a great lesson. So it’s time to streamline the efforts. Figure out the important, highly critical stuff and focus the attention there. And if you’re finding you require more time, have a think... is this in an effort to help the players learn, or is it masking inefficiency in my planning? Often it’s the latter.