Weaknesses
- His hand position on the ball is not quite accurate.
- He doesn’t look at where he is passing the ball
- His follow through is not performed very well.
Weaknesses in depth
In this part of my coursework I will show exactly what I have identified to be Lucas’s weaknesses when passing the ball and how they can be improved.
Firstly, his hand position on the rugby ball is not correct.
The picture on the left shows Lucas holding the ball with both of his hands at the bottom part of the ball. As a result of this, when he lets go of the ball, it will not travel through the air as quick and as accurate as it could be. Also this grip would only be used for a simple ‘pop’ pass which is normally used in back row moves when switching.
To improve his passing technique, he was taught to hold the ball with one hand nearer the top of the ball and the other nearer the bottom. This would then give him the basis of the spinning pass.
On the right, shows Lucas holding the rugby ball in the correct position ready to pass.
Here Lucas has a better grip of the ball with his right hand placed at the bottom of the ball and his left nearer the top.
Secondly, another weakness was when Lucas picks up the ball from the ground and does not look to whom or where he is passing to:
From this picture, it clearly shows evidence that Lucas looks in the complete opposite direction when passing the ball from a scrum half position. This is obviously not a good position to be in, because if he were to perform a pass like this in a game situation it is likely that it will not reach its receiver accurately or quickly.
In order for him to correct this mistake, Lucas was simply told to just keep his eye on the ball as he picked it up and turned to look for a receiver.
From the pictures above it is clearly shown that, Lucas has corrected himself by watching the ball as he passes it.
His third weakness, was that his follow through was not performed very well:
From the pictures shown above, it illustrates that as Lucas brings his body up and goes to pass the ball, he twists his torso to far around without moving his feet. This could result in a loss of balance and the accuracy of the pass to fall.
To see if the practices that Lucas was taught had worked, I asked him to perform a pass as another base line assessment. From these results I could see how he had improved his technique and skill in passing.
From the photographs shown above you can clearly see that he has improved his technique on passing a rugby ball to a higher standard. It shows that his correct hand position gives off a good spinning pass to the receiver; he looks towards his receiver and shows a very good follow through.
For this I gave Lucas 8 out of 10 for his passing technique and stance.
To conclude the analysis of Lucas’s skill of passing, I feel that he has progressed well by practicing the techniques step by step and learning from his mistakes.
Unit skill Analysis
For this part of my coursework I will show you and analyse one of the unit skills we have been practicing at school. For our back row move we had a scrumhalf, a fly half, a centre, a full back and a player on the wing.
Our unit skill simply consists of two dummy switches, which then leads on to a long pass to the player on the wing.
The picture above shows the fly-half performing a dummy switch with the full-back.
The pictures below show the fly-half performing a dummy switch with the centre.
The four pictures above show the fly-half throwing a long pass to the player on the wing to successfully complete the back row move.
Strengths and Weaknesses
For our unit skill there were many strengths, this included; overall everyone had a good understanding of where they must be when the ball is played, how this move could work against opposition and that it worked well most of the time.
However the weaknesses were; players weren’t running on to the ball at pace, sometimes the pass did not reach the player on the wing and as we started to practice this drill/ move for the first time players were not certain what position they were playing.
To conclude my analysis of the unit skill that we performed I feel that it was performed to the best of our ability and therefore I feel that I should give it 10 out of 10. I also think that this move could work very successful in a game situation, as long as it is played with a quite a lot of pace otherwise the fly-half could get tackled.
Individual analysis
In this part of my coursework, I will target my analysis on a skill of myself on a chosen sport. The area that I will be targeting is the backswing in the game of golf.
The backswing is probably the most important part when playing golf; get it wrong and nothing good can follow. The backswing is literally the key to the golf swing itself-which in turn is the central action of golf.
To start my analysis I took photos of myself to see what my strengths and weaknesses are.
After I had taken these photos I gave myself a mark out of 10. For this assessment I gave myself 4 out of 10, as there are clearly areas that need to be improved.
Weaknesses and strengths
From my base line assessment I identified 3 strengths:
- I keep my head in a still position
- The position of my arms at the peak of the backswing
- My feet are kept still as I perform the backswing and are kept parallel to my shoulders.
My 3 weaknesses are:
- My legs aren’t bent enough.
- I’m forcing my head to stay on the ball too much.
- My arms are not quite in the right position.
From this angle, you can clearly see that my knees are hardly bent, and that my head is too low. As a result of this, it could mean that I miss-hit the ball on the downswing or not hit it at all.
From the pictures above this shows another one of my weaknesses where my arms seem to lock and do not bend at the peak of my backswing.
On the two pictures on the left and below, this clearly shows that my head is far too low, which also results in me bending my back over too far.
As a result of this, it would mean that I would not be able to perform the backswing properly as it restricts the movement of the shoulders.
Practices
In order for me to cure or to improve my weaknesses there are a few practice techniques that I can try to help.
Practice 1:
For the first practice technique, I have tried to improve the position of my arms.
In order to do this I placed a credit card between my left arm and ribs.
By using the credit card, it meant that I had to keep my left arm tight to my chest in order to keep the credit card from dropping to the ground.
I found that this drill was very successful as it taught me how and where my arms are supposed to be positioned when performing the backswing.
Practice 2
The following practice is used to help me with my stance and posture.
Firstly, I must bend my knees to get the right height and to give me a good stance. Secondly, I must keep the spine as straight as I can to get the correct posture. Lastly, I should have my chin facing slightly upwards.
Therefore in order to have the correct stance and posture you must; Stand tall with your feet positioned shoulder width apart. Then, add a slight bend in your knees. Finally, lean forward from your hips to reach the ball.
This practice I found also quite successful as it helped me correct my area of weakness involving my stance.
Practice 3
The final practice is very similar to practice 1. For this exercise, you can use a club head cover, which is placed under your right armpit. In this practice you use something bigger than a credit card, as the gap shouldn’t be as small as it is with your left arm and left side of the chest.
This exercise is simply to help with the positioning of the arms as you perform the backswing.
I found this practice useful as it helped me improve and understand where the positioning of my arms should be to perform a reasonably good backswing.
The final assessment
To see if my practices and analysis that I have made on myself actually worked, I did another base line test to compare how well I had improved and gave myself another mark out of 10.
From these pictures, I feel that you can clearly see a big improvement to my backswing, therefore, a gave myself a good 8 out of 10.
To conclude my piece of coursework on analysis of performance, I feel that I have covered all areas in able to get the best results for the performer. This was obtained by showing and telling different practices that could be taught in order for the skill to be improved.
