FITNESS
There are so many excellent fitness sites available not to mention the volumes of information available from Unions and Clubs that I make no attempt to crack the fitness nut here. The following remarks are confined to a few aspects of fitness which don't seem to get mentioned elsewhere.
Players must know that they alone are responsible for their own fitness. The coach and the club will provide all the facilities, equipment, advice and help they can but in the end it is their own responsibility to get and stay fit.
However, many players find working on their fitness alone difficult to sustain and prefer to participate in organized fitness sessions -- particularly in the pre-season. Where these are organized by the club they should be designed to teach players the elements of fitness training so that they can use these elements on their own as well as help them to actually improve. There is a need for both aerobic and anaerobic fitness in rugby. It is a running game and aerobic fitness must be paramount but burst energy and strength must also be built up.
There are no quick fixes when it comes to fitness training. In particular, I absolutely do not believe that there is any place for the use of performance enhancing drugs in rugby. I am even doubtful about the value of off-the-shelf dietary supplements. My strong feeling is that it is sufficient to maintain a properly balanced diet. In fact, I believe that if most players were simply to reduce the amount of fatty food they eat, to increase their water intake toward the recommended 2 liters per day and to use alcohol sparingly they would see major improvements in their playing fitness over the course of a season. I have even been heard to say that the best thing a club could do for its players in the dietary area would be to teach them to cook!
With specific regard to after-exertion alcohol Kiwi coaches say "Piss before you piss!" meaning that after games and training sessions players should rehydrate to the point where they can urinate
before they hit the bar.
Two 90-minute rugby training sessions a week plus a game is not a complete fitness program!
Fitness Sessions
Ideally, and in line with the comments above, it would be best to put the supervision of fitness sessions in the hands of the players. This would allow squad/peer pressure rather than the coach's authority to provide motivation and would also reinforce the point of view that the players themselves are responsible for their own fitness. This objective may not be attainable in the short term because many players have received the mistaken message that they are supposed to get fit for the coach and not for themselves but my belief is that it should be attempted.
Most teams have a captain, an outstanding athlete or a fitness freak (I use this term in the nicest possible way!) who can probably do as good a job as the coach when leading fitness sessions -- and certainly can with a minimum of guidance. The coach is then at liberty to watch, note and inwardly digest the effort and results being achieved. This approach has the added benefit of clarifying the coach's role -- i.e. his job is to coach.
Serious teams take their team fitness very seriously indeed and don't have to be prodded or cajoled. They often have a 20-minute intense aerobic work-out following formal training.
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Fitness goals.
The goal for fitness is to be able to play one's position at the height of one's ability for the entire duration of the match. This means not just the ability to complete the physical actions necessary but also to retain the ability to observe, recognize and exploit opportunities. These mental activities are the first to be abandoned as fatigue sets in. Players stop thinking before they stop running. Strangely, players can retain their ability to carry out relatively mechanical set-piece actions quite effectively long after they have lost their ability to be up with play. Thus "patterning" in the basics is a critical part of training.
Social rugby
There is definitely a place for social rugby. Some of my most enjoyable experiences both on and off the rugby field were the result of playing social rugby and I believe that there are many players who are keen to play but not interested in doing the work that it takes to improve their game.
The problem in my experience is that in some clubs, particularly college clubs in the US, it is difficult if not impossible for new players to differentiate between serious rugby and social rugby. As a result, many new players are led to believe that the only way to play is
unfit and half-drunk. God knows how many useful players are lost to the game as a result and God also knows how frustrating it is for coaches who discover too late that the aspirations of their serious players are being undermined by the club culture.
I believe that every club has a duty to its members to provide them with the opportunity to play at the highest level of their ability. If a club is not interested in serious play it should make this known to potential recruits. In fact, and this is particularly important where players are coming into the game as young adults as they often do in the US, social rugby clubs should strongly recommend that new players join a serious club first to learn the rudiments of the game and to discover whether rugby is likely to be a serious pursuit. Many clubs meet this problem by having two streams -- a serious stream and a social stream. Well organized clubs take advantage of this two-stream set-up by actively using the experience and rugby nous which is often to be found in social sides to both enhance the training and bolster the strength of the serious sides.
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