U19 Women Junior Eagles Flight Camp

Recieved this morning from the USA U19 manager, and I adore at least a couple of people on this staff - I recommend it far and wide to your young players!

U19 Women Junior Eagles Flight Camp
June 17-21, 2007
Blaine, Minnesota

CAMP DETAILS:
Who: Female athletes age 13-19

What: The inaugural Under-19 USA Rugby player development camp.

Why: This camp is designed to instruct players from all levels of skill and experience, including beginners,
to play more effectively as an individual and as a member of a team.
* Interact with USA National team players and coaches
* Film study and individual analysis of play
* Individual player evaluation and feedback * Position-specific coaching
* Full on duty medical staff

When: June 17-21, 2007 (Athletes should arrive by 4 PM June 17 and
may depart after 10 AM on the 21.)

Where: National Sports Complex Blaine, MN

Camp Staff: Head Coach: Bryn Chivers, Coaches: Sue Oldenburg, Tasha Bishop & Lance Connolly. Managers: Jeff Noe & Rachel Flynn

Fee: $399 covers all camp fees including instruction, housing and meals at the National Sports Center.

This is an open camp and any young female player aged 13 - 19 can attend. Space is limited to eighty players and registration has already started. U19 WNT Coach Bryn Chivers recently said "The goal of the camp is to provide the players with the best coaching possible, to introduce them to the U19 WNT Program and to give them access to players and coaches from all of our WNT Programs. I think this is going to be an incredible event and it's exciting to see how many players have already signed up"

Contact Information: All questions should be directed to u19usawomen@usarugby.org.

Brochure and Registration Form: http://www.usarugby.org/media/EDocs/eaglecamp.pdf

Role of the #8 on engagement

I had a great opportunity yesterday to see some of the NA4 preparation, and with that a conversation with one of the specialist coaches. We talked primarily about the role of the #8 as relates to power generation in the scrum.

I've seen and coached #8s to engage a variety of different ways:

Feet shoulder width or more apart, essentially even.
The "slingshot", as part of the total impact method
The "sprint start", with feet split legged like a sprinter, driving forward off the front foot.


What you'll see in the video here is yet another variation. The #8 sets up split legged, as he would for a sprint style start, but instead of driving forward, he actually drops his forward leg back. The resulting effect is that gravity immediately drops him low and forward, propelling the locks ahead of him.

Please forgive the poor quality, it's a cell phone video. Thoughts?

Blowouts, mismatches, a/bs, and the meaning of "development"

We've all been there - you show up on match day, thinking you are playing a B side, or a developmental team, a friendly match, whatever, and low-and-behold, staring across the pitch from you is a player that just last week was wearing a USA jersey. Or a Territorial select side jersey, or a National 7s jersey, or just played in a national championship game.

More and more teams are moving away from the A side/B side designations and going to "Senior and Developmental" or "D1 and D2". The reason? Well, the promising new rookie just flat out learns faster playing next to stronger players. Let's say we've got young #9 we're trying to develop. Play her with your least experienced pack and a brand new #8, and she's doomed to failure. She will develop at a snails pace and your backline is unlikely to see the ball at all, which hinders EVERYONE's development.

But, play her with your champion of the world #8, and an experienced #10, and suddenly she's got clean ball, she can make decisions, and she's operating at a higher work rate than she ever would in the "b side" game. NOW, she has to step up. Let's face it though ... your champion of the world # 8 is still going to run picks, she's still going to make monster tackles, she's still going to poach the ball. And if she's playing against a team that is not quite as fit, big, or well trained, she's going to break tackles, evade defenders, and get into space.

Is this fair? Where is the line?

The reason I bring this up today is that my team and I ran into an awkward situation this weekend. Expectations clearly weren't communicated between match secs and coaches, and we put out a stronger team than our opposition coach thought we should have. Bottom line, for me, there is a real difference between a B side game and a developmental or "mixed side" game.

We were a D1 team playing two separate matches against two local D2 teams, and in an effort to best develop all our players, we decided to split our 38 person roster right down the middle and play "mixed sides". We had a couple of senior select side players who played in each of the matches, not more than 20 minutes each .... and a couple of very high level U23 players who played most of the match. Two of our select side players sat out completely. Our coaching staff and selection committee did what we though was our due diligence, and were obsessive about how we selected - we wanted enough A players to keep the work rate high, provide leadership, and get good ball to our developmental players, while still giving them the bulk of the game time. When selections for each match shook out, it was right down the middle - 1/2 and 1/2 for both games.

This plan backfired horribly. Or maybe it didn't. It's an ethical dilemma, I guess. We won both of the matches, the first, vs what we perceived to be a slightly stronger team) by 40ish points, the second by 27 points. Not huge blowouts, but decisive wins.

I thought our competition - both teams - performed impressively, and was delighted that only one or two of our tries were the result of solo efforts. I thought everyone was happy. I thought the rugby was good, clean, fast, and physical. There were no yellow or red cards, scrums were safe, the ref didn't give any warnings and it seemed like people were having fun. There was one unfortunate injury to one of our first opponents, the result of a BRUTAL small-woman on small-woman level 3 tackle. I was in my little coaching world, pleased we were attacking space like we practiced, and making mental notes about turnovers, ball retention in contact, and lineouts.

Well as it turned out, we (I, the president, the match sec AND the captain) were vehemently chastised for playing ANY select side players at all. It was, apparently, an issue of "sportsmanship". A good sportsman or woman, the theory was proposed, would not let Select Side players play at all against a D2 team.

So - what does the general public think? Is it OK for an Eagle, or a TU select side player, to play in a D2 game, or should D1 A side players be limited to D1 games, and D1 B side players to D2 games? If it's OK to play your top players in a mixed roster match, how much is too much? How strong is to strong? What score is indicative of a blowout? What's the line between fair and competitive? Is it possible for an individual player or players to be TOO GOOD to step on the field against a particular opponent? Is it possible for an individual player to be TOO BIG (one of the assertions) to play against a team that doesn't match up to her size?

To be fair, the games were won not through the efforts of these handful of players, who barely had time to get warm, but through teamwork and an elevated level of play by all the players on the pitch ... but i digress.

For those of you who are with clubs that have two rosters, how to you develop players? A/B games, mixed squads, what?

I realize it's risky to write about a specific event like this, but its been bothering me, and I want to know what ya'll think. No disrespect intended to anyone, but its a valuable, if sensitive topic, so POST AWAY. Please, productive posts only.


Thanks!