How fantastic to come to a school, carrying this net with rugby balls and see everybody smile and go: “Hey, we are going to play rugby!” Yes! back to Comenius College, Capelle for the thirteenth time already. The school runs sport orientation classes where 15-16 year olds try different sports. I take care of the… The post Clinics @Comenius XIII first appeared on Martin's Rugby Coaching Blog ..read more

One week fully immersed in the LPM – Pierre Villepreux’s training method! We decided to go down to Lubersac once again and enjoy the hospitality of Pierre and his fellow LPM coaches. Pierre is now in his eighties but does not seem to age and is still as passionated about rugby and this style of educating players as ever. The LPM – Stage de Pierre Villepreux is a summercamp for all age groups that is run in Lubersac down in the beautiful French Correze region. Starting on Sunday afternoon with small games to group the players and ending with “Test Matches” on the Friday, you can watch the playe ..read more

How Scottish bagpipe music pulled me into rugby! History Years ago, I played Korfbal, the Dutch counterpart to Netball. Our sports complex hosted soccer, hockey, tennis, and one rugby club Hilversum. Because of my Saturday games and Sunday rugby in the Netherlands, I hadn’t encountered much rugby. That changed during a training session when we heard bagpipe music. We went over for a look and found a rugby match underway—a Dutch team against a Scottish side. The piper’s music intensified the excitement, and I was captivated by the players’ passion, emotion, physicality, and ball-handling skills ..read more

In Scotland this time and exploring the Bill McLaren Exhibition at the Hawick Museum: Journey through Rugby’s Iconic Voice Who does not remember his commentary? For me it was very special to be with my Hilversum Sevens team in Jedburgh and to get interviewed by this iconic commentator. He sensed I was nervous about it and calmed me down a bit. So, when I heard about the Bill McLaren Exhibition at the Hawick Museum I obviously wanted to visit. The exhibition was nicely set-up, with memorabilia and poster with his most famous quotes. Mine are: “The stands will tell you!”, “They play to the whist ..read more

How to give technical development a tactical context (and make training more fun) Training an Under 16 Team I was invited to help out with a club’s under 16 team recently and made some interesting changes to their plans that worked out very nicely! Examples The team was working hard in a 3 v 3 drill and the focus was very much on the running line of the player to get him the ball, creating a diversion with that third attacker. They would call the play before they would start running into the grid. It either worked out or did not, and when it did not, it all stopped. I saw players getting frust ..read more

Where I learned my future is in the Front Row Club In Cork for that enjoyable Munster v Crusaders game and instead of following the Crusader to Bristol decided to stay in Ireland and drive up the coast a bit. First stop: Limerick and the new Rugby Experience. In the tunnel The experience starts in “The Tunnel” where the pre-kick off atmosphere is created with sounds, smoke and visuals, then doors open we can go in! Rugby and society It all kicks offs with displays of how rugby and players shaped society and created special memories. Liked the story about how the town of Pontypool was having lo ..read more

It has finally started, take-aways from the RWC The anticipated opener, France had a nervous start, early injury concern and a crazy break by Rieko with a kick pass to the wing by Beauden for a shocking early score (why put Beauden on 15?). In the end it all came good for the home team – give away 11 penalties against a team that has Thomas Ramos… Let’s get this party started! We all thought Argentina had a chance against England, even a bigger chance when Tom Curry got red. But somebody took control and Jannie-de-Beer-ed Argentina out of the game! Note: add rugby historian to coaching st ..read more

I asked ChatGPT to design a scrum training This is what it came up with: Scrum training according to ChatGPT Setting up a training session for Scrum in rugby union involves focusing on key aspects of scrummaging technique, individual skills, and team cohesion. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you organize a productive training session for scrummaging in rugby union: Define Objectives: Determine the specific goals and objectives of the training session. These may include improving technique, enhancing strength and stability, developing communication, and building teamwork within the scrum ..read more

Is it: “Lucky, they made mistakes” It is always interesting how we frame a loss. Like in “We just lost the final, but it was close”, but how do “just” and “close” translate to what is needed to win next time? HSBC Sevens Toulouse Men’s Final This was an exciting final with Argentina in front of the classy New Zealand outfit. But Argentina made some handling errors and allowed New Zealand to catch-up and finally lost. (There was also a tactical mistake with how the ARG scrumhalf positioned with NZ scrums). Looking at this super exciting match I felt ARG gave it away and lost it rather than NZLD ..read more

“Merci Beaucoup!” Set the scene Okay, England has a new coach and it is the home game against France. Everybody eager to see how the English rugby team will be ‘en route’ to the RWC and what a better test than against the team ranked second in the world: France! It turned out that the French felt they underperformed in the 2023 Six Nations and thought they had something to prove too! Ollivon scores Lots to talk about but I discussed this with some friends: Charles Ollivon scored the easiest of tries. Let us view the try: Marcus Smith is retrieving the ball near his own goalline, gets pushed o ..read more