Hey, Coach!

I expect to hear something like "Hey, Coach!" during my first session as coach of UWA u/14 on Thursday night, 1 March next week. I started off without a club affiliation and recently completed the Rugby Foundations full-day course for coaches and referees, having aspirations for achieving Level 1 accreditation and moving on to coaching seniors. At the course, I mentioned I had played colts (u/19) and seniors with University after being introduced to rugby by a South African headmaster I was lucky enough to have at senior high school. Tony, already a coach with UWA, suggested I might enjoy the atmosphere and energy of the club and, having thoroughly enjoyed myself during the Foundations course, coaching a junior side with him. So I rocked up to the Junior Rugby registration day with the intention of meeting and chatting with a few club officials and parents so I could adjudge how well I would fit it. I tell you, one and all made me feel welcome and I am encouraged to turn up to first training on Thursday night to take up the reins.

Rugby WA has done an amazing job in the development of community rugby in WA and encouraging the grasroots support that is the foundation for premier amateur and professional competition. Personally, I have a strong, emotional interest in the success of Australian national rugby team, the Wallabies, and the Emirates Western Force who respresent Australia in the Investec Super 14 competition, arguably the toughest rugby competition in the world bar none with 14 southern hemisphere teams battling it out in the three participating countries of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Perth, Western Australia owes the success in attracting the Super 14 franchise to Perth to the support of expats from the two other countries and the UK since, like the other southern Australian states of South Australia and Victoria, WA is traditionally supportive of Australian Rules Football; rugby, like the round ball game of football, has a long way to go in building a rival support base.

The philosophical basis of building all-round skills that I subscribe to is good for juniors in the game who really do not yet know what positions that will take up in their senior careers. Forwards become backs; locks turn into centres; wingers into flankers. It is unfairly restrictive to box youngsters into positional roles based notionally on their developing body shapes or favourite players' positions. So while solidly-built young players are directed into the forwards, taller players into the second row or the centres, ball quicks and those fleet of foot into the wings or the halves, some positional flexibility should be retained. The 8s, 9s, 10s and 11s focus on the running and passing game, with tackling introduced bodily into the 9s and 10s, then field kicks, these basic and essential skills should continue to be developed and reinforced throughout the playing career. In the modern game at all levels, backs play as forwards to scavenge the ball from the breakdown after a tackle, say, ruck or maul; forwards join the backline in crossover defence, additional wingers or to power over the defensive or goal line.

That is to say that the modern player is more-rounded than the traditional, poisitional roles and in the fast and mobile rugby we mostly see played each person on the paddock is an all-rounder contributing to the contest and continuity that make rugby so great.