The Next 7 Months

from USAWomensRugby.org:

It is Wednesday and the result against France 4 days ago still stings.  As the coach you take full responsibility for the performance of the team and we did not play our best in the final game of the tour.  Hindsight is a great thing but those of us that have been in this position know that reflecting on what happened is a good thing, but going through all the “what-ifs” can be counter-productive.

I think what is true is that the tour was a tremendous learning opportunity for the staff, players and the program as a whole. I will discuss what we learnt over the next couple of weeks, but for now the focus will be on planning for the next 7 months when we hope to play France again.  The planning started before the tour ended.

On the last night the players and staff gathered to review the performance, lead by Johnathan Atkeison.  When we reviewed the performance we saw that we had the edge in lineouts and France had the edge in scrums.  The possession was exactly even (80 rucks a piece) as was the penalty count.  The difference was how we used the possession.  The greatest challenge for the Eagles was the ability to play quickly and execute our skills at pace under pressure.  Johnathan went through the stats and led the discussion on how we need to develop to be able to beat France in June.

After the performance review the players and staff worked on how we can improve in our processes over the next 7 months to support the players development.  This included improving our communication with the players, enhancing the use of the Eagle Training Centers and providing more specific individual feedback.  It was a very productive meeting and there were a lot of great ideas.

The next 2 weeks will be a detailed review of the tour focused on every aspect from medical to logistics to team performance, coaching etc.  The goal is to identify the things we did well and keep them and change the things that did not work.  The goal is to capture the learning so we can share with other programs and the next staff who take on the program.

I will share the learning as we development them on this blog, so check back!

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