Introduction

For my analysing and improving course work I am going to observe Michael Burnley.

The date of observing Michael Burnley will start in September 2005. The sport that I will be teaching Michael will be Rugby League that will cover a wide range of skills needed to play Rugby.

Identify the important skills and techniques

When observing Michael Burnley in this sport there are many skills and techniques required these are:-

Tackling with confidence and good technique – this is very important as this is a major part of rugby league as there are two reasons for this, a good technique insures personal safety and prevention from injuries, and confidence gives you the ability to tackle throughout the game.

Passing accurately and consistently – this is important because if you can pass accurately the ball will get to the object man smoothly and cleanly, to be able to pass consistently you will not throw out many bad passes, and good passes will put players through gaps and will lead to tries.

Kicking accurately – this is important for two reasons firstly if a positional kick is good as it turns the opposition around and other team members can chase the kick, this could lead to a try been scored. Secondly this is important as when you do score a try you get the chance to add two extra points to your teams score from a conversion attempt.

Fitness – this plays a key role in rugby league and most other sports that are played, this is more so important in rugby league as in defence you are constantly running 10mts there and back six times in a set of six. You also need to be fit to last the whole 80 minutes.

Stamina – this is a key skill in rugby as if you don’t have the stamina you wouldn’t be able to make the 10mts and would be unable of play for the full 80mins. Opposing players would identify a player that is struggling and target the weakness in the side, letting the standard of the team performance fall.

Support – this is important in rugby as if you are up with play and you are supporting the man with the ball it gives the ball carrier options and you will score if the man with the ball passes to you.

SAQ – Speed, Agility, Quickness

Speed – this is a very important skill in rugby because if you can break the defensive line you have speed to be able to accelerate away from the defence and score.

Agility – this is important because if you have good agility and good foot work you will be able to step a player and go through the gap.

Quickness – this is a skill needed in rugby league for two reasons first if you are quick to react you will be able to put your self in a better position. Secondly if you are quick you will be able to get up with play quicker and be ready to receive a pass.

Initial Player observation

When observing Michael in a game situation for the first time I found the following information on all of his strengths and weaknesses:

Michael showed the following strengths;

When observing Michael for the first time without any coaching given, I noticed that he has many skills and strengths to his defensive game as he has a good tackling technique, but there is room for improvement. Michael showed good passing skills as one of his team mates scored off one of his passes. But when passing the ball a further distance his accuracy started to fall. Michael showed the ability to read the game well and knew when to pass and to tackle; he also has a good positional kicking game. He scored two tries from good foot work, speed and agility.

Michael showed the following weaknesses;

When observing Michael I noticed that as the game went on and he started to get fatigued his tackling technique started to get sloppy, and drop off one or two tackles. His fitness also proved to be a problem late on in the game, I had noticed that when Michael was tackling, he puts his head in the wrong place and this could have been dangerous as if the person he is tackling falls on his head he could injure his neck. I had noticed when Michael is catching the ball he doesn’t use the ww’s technique. Which means that you have to spread you’re fingers spread out when catching the ball, and should have you’re hands at arms length at shoulder height. This put you in a good position to catch the ball.

Six week training programme and coaching

I am going to do six-week training programme to see how Michael will improve on the coaching given to him. Each week I will be pushing Michael to do well and trying to up the intensity of the sessions as the weeks go by. I will then see how he has improved and adapted the skills I will coach him. Michael will do a warm up and cool down each session to prevent any muscles been pulled or torn. He will then go into the session I have got planned for him warm and flexible so he does not have any tight muscles.

Michael will do the cool down so that lactic acid doesn’t build up in his muscles preventing him from cramp. If he doesn’t do the cool down he could later in the same day pull or tear a muscle. The warm up and cool down will contain: -

Warm up – jog around Rugby field once, static stretching from head working down, hold each stretch for roughly 10seconds. 10 meter passing with ball. Picking up ball 5 meters and running 5 meters with ball in hand. High knees heel flicks, short feet strides and karaoke all 10 meters x2 each.

Cool down – slow jog around half Rugby field, 10 meter jogs x4 stretch off working head down, holding each stretch for roughly 15 – 20 seconds.        

These will be kept the same throughout the course

Week 1 – Warm up. Passing, Michael will have 1 minuet and unlimited amount of balls. He will run 10 meters and pass the ball to me; he will run back 10 meters and will continuously do this until the minute is up. I will record his results in a table on accuracy passing to his left. I will then go to his right and get Michael to do the same and record his results. Drill 2 passing longer distances. I will stand 5 meters from Michael and move out 5 meters until his passing accuracy falls. I will record how far he has passed. I will re do this session in 3 weeks time and note the progress he has made. Cool down.

Week 2 – Warm up. Tackling, I will start by showing Michael the correct technique for tackling. I will then get a tackling shield and let Michael try the correct technique I had just shown him. I will let him get some practice by doing this a few times. Once he has this right I will then get Michael to stand on his right hand side of the 10 meter line and I will stand on my left hand side of the 20 meter line so we are stood opposite each other. He will tackle me six times as in rugby league there are six tackles in a set of 6. I will move 10 meters along the 20 meter line and he will also have to slide up and across the 10 meter line. I will then show Michael ho to tackle from the side and from behind. I will note down his technique. Cool down.

Drill one

Drill two

Week 3 – Warm up. Kicking, I will set out a square 10 meters by 10 meters and around that square I will put a 20 meter square for Michael to try and land and stop the ball in, by kicking it in a grubber style kick. I will note his points down, I will work it out by when landing it in the 10 meter square is 20 points and landing it in the 20 meter square is 10 points. He will get 15 balls to score as many points as he can. I will then get Michael to do a punt kick into the square from the middle of the field 20 meters out. I will make notes of the points he scores. Cool down.

Drill one

Week 4 – Warm up. Re visiting passing, I will this week get Michael to do some passes off the floor and go over week ones session and note down his progress and if his passing has improved with the coaching given. Cool down.

Week 5 – Warm up. Agility, I will set out some ladders for Michaels to run through, but if school doesn’t have any ladders I will just have to set some cones out a foot apart from each other in a line. He will put one foot in each ladder space going through them as quick as possible without touching the ladders; he will do this 3 times. He will then go through them putting two feet in each ladder space and will also do this 3 times. I will then show Michael how to do the next one called dinky do’s this is just going through the ladders putting one foot in and the next foot out of the ladders until he has gone through them, doing this three times as well. The second drill I will set some cones out in a line about 15 meters long using a blue cone at one end a white one in the middle and a green one at the other end and a red one about 10 meters behind them all. I will then shout a colour and Michael will have to get to the colour cone I shout as fast as he can, he will have to do this for one minute non stop. I will note how many cones he can get to within the minute. Cool down.

Week 6 – Warm up.Game situation, this will involve 3 v 2’s and 2 v 1’s. This just means that there will be 2 defenders against 3 attackers and 1 defender against 2 attackers. I will get Michael to try a drop off and to try drawing the defender pulling the defender to the man with the ball and passing it to another man into the gap. I will then get Michael to run a dig line and a bounce line. So that the defenders commit them self’s to the man with the ball to open up a gap. Cool down.

Once I have got my results, I will be able to analyse them and see if my coaching has helped Michael to develop the skills needed, in his game.

Results

Week 1

Passing drill one

Left to right

Right to left

Distances passing drill two

Extension drill

Goal kicking (15 meters out from posts)

Michael got 10 goals form 25 attempts from various positions on the field. This was a good result as Michael had no coaching on goal kicking.

Week 2

Tackling drill one – 20 tackles

10 left shoulder

10 right shoulder

Drill two

Set of six-left shoulder

Set of six-right shoulder

Week 3

Drill one - Kicking for points

10 kicks – punt

10 kicks – grubber

These results from this drill shows me that Michael is more accurate with a grubber kick than he is at a punt kick, I will find some time in a fourth coming session and try to do more work practicing his kicking game.

Drill two -Revisiting goal kicking

Week 4

 Drill one- Passing

Left to right

Right to left

Week 5

Drill one – ladders

One foot in each space

Two feet in each space

‘Dinky do’s’

Drill two – agility

Cones

Week 6

Drill one – two v one

Evaluation

From looking at my results tables, which I had produced from Michaels 6 week training programme, I found out a few key factors; one of which was that Michael already had quite a lot of talent in playing rugby, but that when I re-visited a particular drill i.e. passing he improved in the second time of doing the drill. This shows that my coaching did have an effect on the skill level of Michael’s rugby league skills. Another of which I think that my coaching has improved Michael as a player is that when analysing Michael he didn’t use the well known ww’s technique, (this is just a position to hold your hands ready to receive the ball from a pass). But once I had taught Michael to do this I feel that he will not knock on as many times as he did on analysing him. If I was to do this again with Michael, I would have made sure that I would have had more time to get more drills in, as I would have liked to go over and re-visit more of the drills I had used. This would have been to compare and to see if he had improved his game in all departments – passing, tackling, kicking, etc.

Overall I feel that the coaching points I gave Michael helped him to improve his game, and I hope that some tips and factors that I gave him will help him next time he does this particular sport. I feel that my results show my views.

Factors affecting fitness

Key words:-

Carbohydrate loading,

Cholesterol,

Energy equation,

Glycogen,

Nutrients,

Balanced Diet

We need food because our bodies are in demand for energy, growth and our body uses foods for repair of muscles and for a good health. A balanced diet contains seven essential components:-

• Carbohydrates         need about:- 50 – 60%
• Fats                         need about:- 25 – 30%
• Proteins                 need about:- 10 – 15%
• Vitamins
• Minerals
• Fibre
• Water

However we should try to decrease the amount of salt we eat to prevent cholesterol that is been added to our bodies. And increase the amount of vitamin c, fibre and calcium we eat.

Food and food supplements

A high carbohydrate diet will provide us with energy to compete on sport; often athletes will carbo load before competing in sport (where the performer will eat a high amount of carbohydrates to prevent fatigue). However if the performer doesn’t burn all the carbohydrates off as a source of energy the body then stores the excess as fat in the bodies cells.

Body type

Using a method of body typing is known as somatotyping it is possible to classify the enormous range of different body types into 3 main categories; endomorphs, mesomorphs and ectomorphs.

Body size

At puberty boys develop larger bones and there is a big increase in muscle size. This is due to the release of the hormone testosterone, and anabolic (growth – producing) steroid. Teenage boys are larger and more muscular then girls.

Strength

Women are generally weaker than men. However when their body size is taken in to account, the differences are not significant. Men are much stronger in the upper body than women, when women train with weights it is body tone that is increased, rather than body size. With men weight training helps muscles become larher and stronger because of their high levels of testosterone.