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Coaching
Welcome back and a special welcome to the new players.
As you all know, Surrey 1 has been restructured this year and it will be an intense and very competitive league. We played some superb rugby last year and I also hope we all learned a lot. We now need to consolidate what we learned and build on it during pre-season and as we begin this year’s campaign. Those of you who played last year will also know that we played against some very good sides. The league will be of an even higher standard this year and we have to hit the ground running.
Those who experienced it last year will know that my coaching will not involve being prescriptive - it is all about getting players to think and understand what they're doing. At this level, we cannot simply turn up with a Plan A and hope it works. We need to take to the pitch with two teams of fifteen intelligent players. As in any winning club, the 1st XV is only ever as good as its 2nd XV. We must, therefore, have squad numbers that provide depth and cover and where all players are interchangeable, such that we are not stretched at key points in the season.
Pre-season
This starts tonight. While the first few weeks will generally be light hearted and relaxed (getting progressively more intense), with the emphasis on putting the ball through the hands, I will still be coaching.
These early sessions are not just meant to be a game of touch. I will be adding technical input, breaking down what people are doing and analysing and reinforcing the lessons that we learned last season, as each session progresses. In addition, 80 minutes of touch rugby is a fantastic opportunity to build up a sweat and do some aerobic and anaerobic work. As I kept saying last year - WE TRAIN AS WE PLAY. There has to be attention and focus to everything we do. And then, when the work is done, we can relax, have a laugh and enjoy the success.
These sessions will, obviously, be vitally important in consolidating the work that we put in during pre-season and last season. They are the only chance we have to work together, learn lessons and prepare for the Saturday fixtures. For those of you who played last year, I hope you enjoyed them and came away from most sessions having not only learned something, but also having started to think and question why we do certain things on the pitch.
The more everyone understands the game as a whole (rather than blindly following what they've been coached at school, club or university in the past), the more effective we'll be as a side. Games are often won in the psyche of a match - and my aim is to mould intelligent rugby players who are capable of not only ‘out boxing’ their opponents... but also out thinking them!
Please make every effort to attend these sessions - I know it's difficult to make every Wednesday but please don't ever look out of the office window at five pm at the rain and think "stuff it, can't be arsed with that tonight." You'll not only be letting your team mates down, but you'll be handing every side we play against an advantage. Surrey 1 is a good standard league with many ambitious teams in it. Complacency is not an option.
We showed at times what we are capable of last season. We played some rugby at a standard higher than that you might be expected to see in the two leagues above. There are players of real quality and ambition in this club. It was our lack of time together, our lapses in concentration and the lack of numbers training in the latter part of the season that were a problem. I wasn't involved last year until the second league game and that is why I want to emphasise the importance of our pre-season sessions. If we can manage to put in 10-12 quality hours before our first league game, we will be 10-12 sessions ahead of many of our opposition clubs.
Finally, Wednesday nights are not about fitness - you need to be fit when you arrive. A single fitness session with me on a Wednesday night will not benefit your fitness, it will only eat into the precious amount of time we have to prepare for Saturday’s match. Fitness is about being able to focus, concentrate and produce the same skill level at the 80th minute as you would expect to produce in the 1st minute. Wednesday nights will be intense and as a player you need to do (individually outside training sessions) what you must in order to arrive fit - please, please do it.
When I started with the Exiles last year, I knew last season would be all about this season. We did an awful lot of good work last year and must now build on it for this year. Every session for the new season has been planned and the committee has already put in awful lot of hard work for the coming season.
Quite simply, winning the league this season has to be everyone's ambition.
Good luck and let's enjoy it. Go boys
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JULY FIXTURES
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1st XV
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2nd XV
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Vets / 3rd XV
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