Last weekend a van full of WGR coaches drove up to Minneapolis to take part in the Graham Henry and Wayne Smith coaching presentation hosted by Minnesota Youth Rugby and sponsored by The Rugby Site.
The Rugby Site is an amazing coaching website dedicated to bringing professional coaching and professional development to all corners of the universe, including the frozen tundra of the upper Midwest.
It was an inspiring experience and worth the extra effort to get there. It was also good connecting with all our friends in the rugby coaching community. We saw a lot of girls coaches there from our neighbors in Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota, in addition to al the collegiate coaches out there.
For those unfamiliar with the former New Zealand national team coaches, Graham Henry was the head coach of the Kiwis for the 2011 and 2007 World Cups, winning the Webb Ellis World Cup trophy with an 8-7 victory over France in 2011.
In addition to being an All-Blacks asst. coach, Wayne Smith is currently an asst coach with the Waikato Chiefs, who just won the Super 15 Title. That's equivalent to the Super Bowl in southern hemisphere professional rugby.
While there were many lessons learned that day, we'll share one golden nugget from each.
From Wayne Smith, came the idea of "SOGS". Smithy focused on video analysis and the use of statistics to inform coaching. SOGS stands for "Stays on the Ground" and tracks whether players stay on the ground after a tackle. He said his Chiefs had the lowest SOGS score of any team in their competition. It appears to be a measure of hustle and a measure of a player's ability to get back in the game quickly.
Henry began with his philosophy on coaching, and stressed that a great coach needs to focus on being the best person they can be ... staying in shape, living a healthy lifestyle, getting sleep, and bringing one's best to every practice, since our time with athletes is so precious and limited, especially for us coaches not in professional environments. He stressed how being a great coach includes putting the time in, "doing your homework" as he says, and watching film; of your own matches and other matches. That's how you learn the game and it's trends.
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