Explore every episode of the podcast Rugby Coach Weekly
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Inside the Squidge Rugby brain: Coaching, analysis and rugby geekery with Will Owen
Welcome to the Coaching Knife when we cut to the root of the matter. In this episode, we speak to Gavin Blackburn, Head Coach Cambuslang RFC.
Focusing on the scrum rugby we are going to cut to the root on how to deal with a pack that’s dominating you.
Gavin was a former age-grade district and international prop. He was a member of Saracens’ academy programme in the late 1990s, then played club rugby for London Scottish, Glasgow Hawks, Glasgow Southern, and Stirling County coached at Dunfermline, Kilmarnock, Biggar, Garnock, West of Scotland and Stirling County, and was a development officer for five years between 2012 and 2017 in the Garnock Valley.
His philosophy is to develop players by using a drill to demonstrate key points and then putting them into a conditioned game to work on these points/skills under pressure.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Charlie Morgan, Senior Rugby Writer at The Telegraph and Ross Hamilton, freelance Rugby Analyst working with BT Sport, formerly Saracens and England analyst.
Dan Cottrell chats to Owen Woods, Community Rugby Coach for Gosport & Fareham RFC.
Owen was previously in the Air Force for 4½ years and then the police for 17 years. In June 2021 he started up his full-time role to promote rugby and its core values, the vision being to put the club and values at the heart of the community.
He has coached his son's rugby team for the last six years. He is a level 2 coach, a qualified referee working in schools in the local community delivering rugby sessions to children from 7 to 13.
Owen was recently awarded the Gosport & Fareham RFC Coach of the Year Award.
We discuss the following areas:
How do you start sessions...exactly...in terms of what you say? Lots of coaches talk for too long, so how do you get across the pertinent information?
How his background in the police force has informed his coaching.
While we would all love to spend time hone skills in small groups, how can we be effective when we have lots of players at our sessions?
If players are being disruptive, how do you make sure they don't spoil the session for everyone else.
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Lesley McKenna, Coach Developer for UK Sport and Sport Scotland as well Programme Manager for GB Snowsports (@LesleyMckenna) and Sarah Murray, Performance Psychologist and owner of Performance Edge Psychology (@Sarahsportpsych).
Dan chats with former Fiji captain Deacon Manu, who's now coaching in Singapore.
Deacon has travelled the rugby world, representing Fiji and the Maori All Blacks, as well as playing for Waikato Chiefs and the Blues in Super Rugby and then for the Scarlets in Wales.
They chat about the coaches he's experienced and now coaching with developing players and new players to the game.
What was the playing and coaching journey before Singapore?
What are the challenges of working in Singapore?
How is the game is growing in this part of the world. What lessons can we all learn for the sake of the growth of the game?
Do you need local heroes or can you rely on the global game to develop interest?
Where are the new players coming from and how do you keep them in the game?
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Dr Suzanne Brown, Clinical Psychologist and Emotional Fitness Consultant working within business, sport and education and Dean Leek, Performance Mindset Coach within the sport and business sectors
Dan chats to Kevin Mulcahey about his experiences coaching both novices and experts and how you need to change to meet their needs.
Kevin coaches Gaelic football and hurling, Ireland's national sports as an assistant or head coach at all ages and levels. He has also worked in multiple roles on three continents as a coach of various stripes like assistant coach, S&C coach and performance coach in Aussie Rules, basketball, soccer, rugby, tennis, volleyball, hockey and in numerous other 1-2-1 roles over 28 years.
He also runs Designing the Game on Facebook where he challenges coaches to think about their approaches to coaching. His main role is an owner-operator S&C and sports performance coach at TMC Performance Coaching. You can catch Kevin @movementcoachkm on Twitter where he is active and responds to DM’s.
In the podcast, they discuss the following:
How much does your team coaching approach change when you are dealing with experts and novices?
Using "pivot" players in any sport.
A principle of play has normally been set by coaching experts from the past, no matter what sport you are in. How much do players need to know about a principle before you start working on it? And how do you introduce it?
How to use deliberate practice in the right context.
How long do you let a team or player do something which is clear to you that is inefficient, and despite your nudges, they continue to do it?
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Laurence Halsted, former GB Olympic Fencer, former Performance Director for Danish Fencing and currently Director of Mentoring at the True Athlete Project. Dr Jon Rhodes, founding member of Imagery Coaching and lecturer at the University of Plymouth and Richard Cheetham, Senior fellow in Sports Coaching at the University of Winchester and coach developer with a variety of sports.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Nick Ward, Altis Programmes Director, Dr Peter Olusoga, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Sports Psychology consultant with a specialism in the psychology of coaching in high-performance coaching environments, and Josh Fletcher, performance coach with Formula 3 and founder of Career Blueprint.
Anyone wishing to attend the ALTIS Beta trial of their mentoring programme, please feel free to contact Nick Ward via his social media channels (mentioned in the pod) or vie email at n.ward@altis.world
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Dan chats to Kris Stafford, Rugby Development Officer at Leeds Beckett, MSc in Sports Coaching, U.K Coaching award winner, and host of the @bigbreakdownhq podcast.
In the podcast, they discuss:
Making sure the players are valued and integrated into the coaching process
How to genuinely engage with the players outside their sport
How to have entire team conversations
What a positive and supportive learning environment looks like
Ways to design a practice to make purposeful
Using the STEP model to develop practices
What is meant by the MOTs of the ABCs
Where to use a self-directed learning approach, where players spend time exploring and practicing key skills both with and without coach guidance
Where players need guidance and where they can take control
Using all the coaches in the session to run an effective game
How to make player huddles more impactful
To find out more about the The Big Breakdown: A Coaching Podcast, click here.
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Dan Cottrell chats to top sports psychologist Dan Abrahams about how even non-expert coaches can make a difference in their players' mindset.
Dan Abrahams is the author of four best-selling sports psychology books and is the founder of both the Dan Abrahams Soccer Academy and The Sport Psych Show podcast.
They talk around the following ideas:
Can a coach really influence the mind of a player?
What does a good environment and culture look like?
How do we help build a high-performance mindset?
Why we need to help our players understand how to perform, even if they are seemingly off their game?
What does a bio-psycho-social approach mean to a coach and the player?
How can non-expert coaches make a difference using sports psychological interventions?
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Jonny McMurty coach, coach educator and researcher with Rugby Australia and Queensland University and Peter Hughes, athletic development coach with Ulster Rugby.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Zane Winslade, author of the Mental Toughness Journal, mental performance coach with Flow Sport and coach and Kyle McLean, coach developer, educator, owner of The Coaching Gig and coach.
Dan hosts a discussion between Professor Rob Gray and Dr Mike Ashford about how players make decisions.
The discussion is based on a paper that Mike wrote reviewing different academic approaches to decision-making: Understanding a Player’s Decision-Making Process in Team Sports: A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence https://doi.org/10.3390/sports9050065
Rob Gray suggests that the role of ecological dynamics needs to be viewed differently from the paper's conclusions.
During the discussion, we explore different views on information processing and ecological dynamics, with reference to various coaching and game scenarios.
Mike is a lecturer in Sport Coaching at Coventry University. His research interests include player and coach decision making, coach development and understanding how we can shape effective learning environments. Mike completed his PhD at Leeds Beckett University. Follow Mike @MAGreyMattersUK
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Jenny Coe, West Ham Women's Head of Performance and Wellbeing and Liz Burkinshaw, Learning and Development Professional and Innovation Officer, Sports Leaders.
Dan speaks to Paul Gustard, now defence coach at Benetton, formerly England defence coach, Harlequins head coach and coach with Saracens.
Paul, who won two England caps and represented the Barbarians, also played for Leicester Tigers, London Irish and Saracens,
They reflect on Paul's journey to Italy and how he feels reinvigorated.
They talk about the following:
Why do you love coaching?
What gets players to buy into a coach quickly? Conversely, what puts the players off?
How you can simplify the way you coach to get more from the players?
How to change group work to make it more powerful and impactful?
What's holding back coaches from being better versions of themselves?
Using a "game face" in coaching and matches.
You've lost on Saturday in a game you could have won. In training sessions, do you address the errors or move on?
The contact area seems to be favouring the team that "jackals" best. Where you would focus your coaching tactically and technically to improve your ball retention?
How do you break down a defence that comes at you?
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Dan Cottrell chats to Mike Ford. Mike has been coaching at the top of the professional game for over twenty years, with stints at England and Ireland rugby, Saracens, as head coach at Bath, plus coaching with the British and Irish Lions and RC Toulon.
He also runs his own performance consultancy, which you can find out more about on his LinkedIn profile here.
I really enjoyed Mike's clarity, especially around how he had to convince players and stakeholders about their approach at Bath.
We discuss the following areas:
The sacrifices of being a professional coach
How to build a system of play
What player-led coaching really looks like
Mentoring your own children (George as an international, Joe and Jacob as young coaches with championship team Doncaster and National League team Bury St Edmonds respectively)
What detail matters as a coach
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Laurence Halsted, former GB Olympic Fencer, former Performance Director for Danish Fencing and currently Director of Mentoring at the True Athlete Project, Dr Jon Rhodes, founding member of Imagery Coaching and lecturer at the University of Plymouth and Richard Cheetham, Senior fellow in Sports Coaching at the University of Winchester and coach developer with a variety of sports.
Dan catches up with one of the most experienced coaches and coach educators in rugby, Pete Drewett.
After working with England Rugby since the early 90s, as well as coaching international age-grade (U21s), Pete went on to help build the Exeter Chiefs ready for their ascension into the top league. With stints in high-performance with Hong Kong and Georgia, plus working at the WRU, he is now a World Rugby High Performance consultant developing Kenyan rugby and their ambitions to play in the next World Cup.
Having coached Dan at Exeter University in the late 80s(!), they discuss the following areas:
Some of the greats of England Rugby coach education, including Don Rutherford and Chalky White.
What's stayed the same and what's changed since then in coach education.
Using Mosston's Teaching Styles.
How to develop as a coach.
The highs and lows of being a professional coach.
What makes Rob Baxter, the current Chiefs coach, so good at what he does.
He also runs his own performance consultancy, Perform 2XL. For more information, contact him on peterdrewett@perform2xl.co.uk
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Alex Guest, Head of Rugby at City of Oxford College (Wasps Rugby ACE programme) and Cail Cookland, assistant coach at City of Oxford College (Wasps Rugby ACE programme)
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Jack Rolfe, Owner of The Coaching Lab and Coach and James Clark, owner of JRC Coaching and Oxford University Women's Assistant Coach.
Dan chats with head of the Dragon Academy, Dai Rees about his coaching experiences in a long career, including Dragons Regional Coach, stints as Wales Sevens and Wales U21s coach, heading up the rugby development and high performance the Hong Kong RU, as well as working within the WRU high performance platform and most recently as head of rugby at Seaford College.
He has just launched Red Road Coaching Partnership, and we touch on how mental skills and preparation for competition is so vital in the modern era.
Topics include:
Making coaching relevant to Gen-Z players
What he would include in his bible of skills
What a training session would look like to get more from the players
What are his principles of play
How his coaching fits into the learning cycle
And lots of practical ways to assess your coaching and make more of a difference with your players
To find out more about Red Road Coaching partnership, click here
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Peter Thomas, Lewes Hockey Club coach, Happy Hockey owner and coach, Neil Plimmer, Jolf owner and Coach and Tom Shuttleworth, Rhino Sports Coach owner and coach.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Dan Lycett, Head of Sport at St Davids School, Coach with RGC (North Wales academy team) and Ross Williams, conditioning coach at St Davids School and coach with RGC.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Josh Fletcher, experienced wellness practitioner with Formula 2, professional rugby, and the Special Forces and Finn Kelly, rugby coach, current BSc coaching student and host of the Athlete Wellness podcast.
Bird and LJ caught with Rachel Lund, former England international and now a Gloucester-Hartpury player who is studying to become a physio.
They asked her about the following:
Her journey from minis player to premiership.
Combining and juggling her commitments as an international and club player whilst studying full time for a degree.
Whether she would have changed to a full-time contract if she had been offered it.
The importance of having many career options.
Her current degree in physiotherapy.
How her degree combines with her sport.
Rachel began playing for Malton & Norton RUFC in North Yorkshire when she was 6 years old.
In 2013 she began studying Sports Therapy at the University of Worcester and began playing for Worcester Ladies in the Premiership.
In the 2014-15 season, she played for the England U20s at full back. Later that year she was capped by England Seniors whilst on tour in Canada in 2015 and was an EPS player for the 2015-16 season.
Following her studies she began a full time Academy Sports Therapy role at Hartpury College, and in this role, moved from Worcester Ladies to sign for Gloucester-Hartpury in 2017.
She has recently begun a masters in Physiotherapy and plans to play alongside her degree at Gloucester-Hartpury.
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Bird and LJ catch up with England Women's assistant coach, Amy Turner.
Amy played 59 times for England, at scrum-half, centre and hooker. She played in three World Cups and helped England win seven Six Nations Grand Slams.
She is currently a World Rugby intern. Formerly a police officer, she worked for the RFU as a Performance Pathway Officer and coached men's rugby too.
Here are the questions Bird and LJ asked Amy:
You had a very success playing career alongside 10 years in the police. How did you balance both aspects of your life? (Any tips you can offer to developing coaches or players on how to manage your time and still achieve your goals?)
As a player you were capped at 9/12/2, do you think this was a positive experience personally and for your development as a player? Does this now directly influence how you look at the positioning of players?
Do you have any moments that really shaped how you now approach your coaching? Specially thinking about situations of conflict or challenging behaviours.
Throughout your playing career, can you think of any coaches or situations that have developed you into the coach you are now?
As you develop your coaching now, have you had any mentors/people/moments to continue pushing/challenging your philosophy as a coach?
You have experience coaching both men and women, do you have to approach how you plan your sessions differently, or adapt your coaching style on field?
Can you tell us a little bit about your experiences on the world rugby internship program?
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Carl Woods, senior research fellow in skill acquisition at Victoria University and Ben Franks, lecturer in applied coaching science at Oxford Brookes University, coach analyst with Gillingham Women's Football club.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Sam Larner, Rugby Analyst, writer, rugby content creator and coach, and Brian Fitzpatrick, Rugby Analyst with Agen Rugby and owner of BF Sports Analysis.
Welcome to the coaching knife when we cut to the root of the matter. In this episode, we speak to Callum Adam, Currie RFC Senior Mens Assistant Coach and Edinburgh University Women’s 2nd XV Head Coach.
Focusing on defence we are going to cut to the root on what comes first, tackling or defence
As well as coaching with Currie Mens and the Edinburgh Uni women, Callum has coached with the Scottish Rugby Union with their age grade development teams, plus a stint at Dundee RFC.
His philosophy: To make a difference in people's lives on/off the pitch.
You can contact him on: LinkedIn Callum Adam
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Dan catches up England's new defence coach, Australian former rugby league player and top level RL coach, Anthony Seibold. Now taking a short break at home after helping England with their unbeaten autumn campaign, Anthony chats to Dan about the following:
How Eddie Jones wanted Anthony look at England's defence as well as other teams.
How to attack against a blitz defence.
Using "big rocks" as a basis for training.
How to disrupt a good kicking team, like the Springboks.
Using small-sided games in training.
An example of a kick-pressure game you can use.
When to work on technical skills in a busy week of training.
What to observe in training to make a difference.
Using elements of Doug Lemov's guidance on session design.
The analogy of 10 tennis balls, and how it can help create clarity in your team.
How to be curious, and how to make it work for you.
Anthony was head coach of the Brisbane Broncos and South Sydney Rabbitohs in Australia's NRL competition. He has also coached at a number of clubs including: Manly Sea Eagles, Melbourne Storm and worked as an assistant for Queensland in the State of Origin series.
His playing career included spells in England with Hull KR and London Broncos, along with Canberra Raiders and Brisbane Broncos in NRL. He was most recently coaching mentor at the Newcastle Knights NRL team.
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Alison Payne, executive coach and mentor, equestrian and paddle sports coach and Gary Laybourne, CEO Coach Core, track and field and academy football coach.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Stuart Dixon, Programme lead for Yorkshire Rugby Academy and Alex Grieve, Developing Player Programme lead Yorkshire Rugby Academy.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Adam Gorman, senior lecturer in skill acquisition at Queensland University of Technology, Alex Lascu, lecturer in skill acquisition and performance psychology and PhD candidate at the University of Canberra and Rob Mason, coach developer with Port Adelaide AFL club and researcher in feedback and communication.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
The tables are turned this week as editor of Rugby Coach Weekly Dan Cottrell joins Phil to interview him on the Roundup, its journey so far and what the future may hold.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Sam Jarman, player and coach developer in golf, rugby, cricket and football, Andy Morrison, pro golf mental performance coach and Simon Mundie, broadcaster in radio and TV, host of the Don't Tell Me The Score and Life Lessons from Sport and Beyond podcasts and aspiring author.
The team pick out the key takeaways from each piece of great content and discuss how it can be applied to coaching.
Dan Cottrell catches up with one of the leading researchers on using games in training, Shane Pill. Shane is Associate Professor in Physical Education and Sport at Flinders University, Australia, a practising coach, coach developer and author of many papers around sports coaching. A list of some of his most recent work is below this post.
The discussion in the podcast explores the following:
Do we need to know the difference between the different approaches to using games in training, for example, between games-based approaches, constraints-led approaches, games-sense and gamification?
How "games" differ for novices and experts.
When does coaching happen within a game.
When you need to breakout of the game and for what reasons.
How Shane has developed his approach to coaching through games in his experiences working in schools.
Why we need to plan questions for games and not get distracted by the game in training.
The impact of different groups of "learners" on the style of your coaching (and this isn't about learning styles).
Applying Mossten's teaching styles in a game-based training session.
How not all your sessions should be about learning.
How games can be used for recall and rehearsal as well as learning.
Some examples of Shane's most recent research papers/book contributions.
Pill, S. (2021). Introduction: games-based coaching. In Perspectives on game-based coaching (pp.xvii-xxviii).Routledge.
Pill, S. & SueSee, B. (2021). The game sense approach as play with purpose. InPerspectives on game-based coaching (pp.1-10).Routledge.
Hewitt, M. & Pill, S. (2021). Exploring pedagogical tensions: providing practical examples for tennis coaches to navigate a shift to game-based coaching. In Perspectives on game-based coaching (pp.96-107).Routledge.
Pill, S. & Reynolds, D. (2021).Exploring coach educators’ experiences with developing game-based coaching. Perspectives on game-based coaching (pp.108-116). Routledge.
Pill, S. (2021). Reconciling approaches: Informing game sense pedagogy with a constraints-led perspective. In Game Sense for Teaching and Coaching: International Perspectives. Routledge.
Curry, C., & Pill, S. (2021). Concluding thoughts: Game Sense for teaching and coaching globally. In Game Sense for Teaching and Coaching: International Perspectives. Routledge.
Agnew, D. & Pill, S. (2021). Creating caring environments: An exploration of football managers and coaching. Sports Coaching Review, Published online: 18 Mar 2021
Cruickshank, V., Pill, S., & Mainsbridge, C. (2021). Just do some physical activity. Exploring experiences of teaching physical education online during Covid-19. Issues in Educational Research, 31(1), 76-93.
Williams, J., Pill, S., & Hewitt,
To find out more about this podcast and many others, go to Rugby Coach Weekly
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Mike Rogers, Waikato Women's head coach, former Bay of Plenty senior and U19 coach and host Inside Running coach learning series and Jay Carter, Golf New Zealand National Coach and host Talking Performance podcast.
The team pick out the key takeaways from each piece of great content and discuss how it can be applied to coaching.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Andy Plimer host Rugby Coaches Corner podcast, PE teacher and Concordia University Women's coach and Luke Gromer, host of The Coaches Club podcast, English teacher and basketball coach.
The team pick out the key takeaways from each piece of great content and discuss how it can be applied to coaching.
Fit Learning is a powerful system of instruction based in behavioural science and the Technology of Teaching, and it aims to transform the learning abilities of children, which it does in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: James Hamilton Director of Rugby at Nottingham High School and Andy Drummond Head of Athletic Development at Nottingham High School The team pick out the key takeaways from each piece of great content and discuss how it can be applied to coaching.
Host Phil Llewellyn with guests review some of the many great podcasts, books, articles and webinars from the last week.
This week's guests: Michael Wright, Southampton FC Academy Coach and The Sports Initiative Podcast Host and David Kilcoyne, PE Teacher and Head of Rugby at Desborough College.
The team pick out the key takeaways from each piece of great content and discuss how it can be applied to coaching.