Saracens Academy: Behind the scenes with the Wolfpack

Themed sessions

The Saracens Academy has a cycle of sessions, with one focused more on individual and collective resilience, another on skill mastery and the last on tactical cohesion.

This sets the direction of travel for each session, and the coaches – and sometimes the players - know in advance the intended direction for the session.

DAN’S KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A theme for the session might seem a luxury if you only see your players once a week before a matchday. However, you can still run this as a block of three over a three-week cycle. In a normal session, you might do a warm-up, including some skill development, a skills-based activity or game, and some unit work, and then finish with a team run-through or game. When spread over three weeks instead, in week one, you might make the session run faster, emphasising skills in fitness. Week two might be the skills session – a bit slower, halving the time you spend on set-piece play and perhaps ending with a skills-orientated game. Finally, the team week might have more significant game scenarios, more set-piece practice and finish with a run-through.

• Change your language and, therefore, energy for each session. Rather than a rollercoaster session that is slow, medium, and fast, make sure everyone knows the pace of the session. This helps everyone know when and what types of mistakes are acceptable. In the slower skills session, when players are embedding a skill, you might want higher accuracy with a core skill, and allow performance errors with a new skill. In the faster, fitness-orientated session, skills mistakes are acceptable if the effort to stay in the game is high.

• The players moved from small skill units, then into a short fitness block, with sprints and down-ups (landing on the chest and bouncing up).
• They then went into games. These were small-sided, turn-and-burn, touch games. The touched player had to go to ground and pop up the ball. Every attacker had to be within 15m of the try line for a try to be scored. There were additional rules, which meant players had to run out of the box to cones. The skill levels were not a focus. Instead, it was all about staying in the game. No dead moments!
• There were two games going, and then the players rotated. By the end, most players were still going, but they were shattered. Again, the coaches were looking for players to last the course, curious as to how individuals work together, and support one another as fatigue sets in. There were five teams, so one team was doing contact fitness as the other two played.
• They finished with a final conditioning block and some more skills sessions.

Themed sessions

Saracens U18s rotate through three themes – ’Tough’, ’Skilled’ and ’Together’.

’Tough’ sessions are designed to help educate the players about the physical and psycho-social challenges a high-performance environment might demand.

‘Skilled’ sessions are about the pursuit of technical mastery, understanding your craft, and loving the pursuit of getting better and better technically – ‘What is tactically desirable must be technically possible’.

‘Together’ sessions are where the group explores its shared principles and builds tactical cohesion across different moments of the game.

On the night I observed them, they were exploring the ’Tough’ theme.

Jack observed that, throughout the first few weeks of pre-season, the emergence of ‘tougher together’ was language the playing group were starting to adopt as an internal mantra. They recognise that they are stronger when they are doing it for one another.

In the session I saw, the coaches were looking to challenge, educate and stress-test the resilience of the playing group. 

They believe each individual can learn a lot about themselves in the sessions. They can do more and go further than they might have previously believed they were capable of. The intention is to create a high-challenge, high-support environment. 

Moreover, the group has a mantra: ‘No dead moments’. This means that, when they are playing, the players don’t stop. 

This shouldn’t be misconstrued as: ‘Don’t stop moving’. They are trying to educate the playing group about looking for information (scanning) and then sharing that information to help one another (communicating). 

Fundamentally, the focus is on educating the players on what tough means in a rugby context. 

There are moments in a game, as in life, where you can take the easy route or the tough route. Crucially, the session is about choices. Which route will you take?

For example, if a player has made a line break, do you chase back to cover? 

The coaching team stressed to the players: Chase those lost causes, because this might mean that the opposition scores in the corner rather than under the posts. That could be the difference between winning and losing a game. 

They want to be a team whose identity is wrapped around the idea that they will scrap for everything and never give up.

In a fitness session, like with a Bronco, do you aim to survive, or do you try to learn more about yourself and push yourself to the limit?

The coaches and the players police it. In the team huddle before the start of the formal session, the head strength and conditioning coach emphasised it, and then one of the player leaders reiterated it.

There was a threat that the whole group might have to repeat an arduous task if one of the players was slacking. If that happened, that player would stand out and watch. It didn’t happen in this session.

It was particularly tough on the larger players to keep going. Recognising this, the coaches encouraged them in the context of what they could achieve.

Though it didn’t happen in this session either, in a previous session, after the closing huddle, the group had to do another round of hard fitness, something they were not expecting. This surprise element is an excellent way to test resilience. Jack called it a ‘fake finish’.

“We’ve found that when the players are making these tough choices together, the bond that you build is so much stronger because you know you have been to that tough place together, you’ve suffered together, you’ve struggled together," he said.

“You know you’ve had that shared experience when playing with each other. There’s that trust, that belief and confidence in one another.

“If these boys want to move into a high-performance environment, with a team that, year-on-year, wants to win domestic and European championships, they need to know what tough looks and feels like.”

DAN’S KEY TAKEAWAYS

• It is hard to replicate full match conditions in training. However, you might have one session in three where you focus more on ‘tough’. Make it clear what the intention is and what will be recognised as good. Persistent effort is valued more than skill or decision errors.

• Not every player will be focused on playing at the top level. Therefore, you might need to temper how hard you push the team in a ‘tough’ session. However, there is plenty to gain from bonding as a group to get through to the end. Push the responsibility onto the group to help each other.

• Look for examples of ‘tough’ in matches and highlight them to the team—the player who chases the lost cause or bounces back into the line every time after a tackle.

Skill accuracy

The best players can catch pass, tackle and make consistently good decisions under pressure.

’With some of the most talented young players in the country at their disposal, what does this look like in the Saracens Academy training?

You may be surprised to see that most of the exercises don’t look very complicated. The focus is on one or two key points.

While the main session was about resilience, the skill activities were aimed at accuracy.

The players were familiar with all the drills, with one exception.

Jack had asked Jon Pendlebury to run a handling-skills section with the second rows. Based on the statistics, locks make lots of tip and pull-back passes, and they performed lots of repetitions of slightly different activities.

Jon focused on the locks keeping square to engage the opposition and not stopping when they passed the ball.

But, for all the more familar activites, the players were quickly into the drill and could coach each other, as much as the coaches could emphasise key points. Simple verbal cues (or reminders) were used throughout. Because of the drill familiarity, the intensity was high – five minutes, with rotations inside the exercises. 

It was classic interleaving, with variety rather than progressions. For example, in the contact section, the players moved through three stations, each with a variation on height, leg drive and effective movement patterns in contact scenarios. 

In the offloading section, the players moved from a small-sided game into an isolated practice, back into the game and then back into the isolated practice. Accuracy was emphasised in the drill, and exploration in the game.”

DAN’S KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Skill accuracy requires knowing what the skill should look like, but it is even better if the players know it and can coach each other.

• When embedding the skills, interleave them. That means using two or three variations of the theme within the session.

• Use familiar practices to keep the pace of the session high. Even ‘old favourites’ become forgotten, and a different day can often add a different twist without varying the drill.

Height club

When Jack was running the contact session, he reminded the players of a club they didn’t want to belong to: Height Club.

’This is, of course, a play on Fight Club – though how many of the 17-year-olds there know a film from 25 years ago, I’m not sure!
It was, however, a fun reminder that they needed to be low through contact.

DAN’S KEY TAKEAWAYS

• External visual cues work well, especially when the players are tired.

• Simple expressions that the players understand can be repeated to their team-mates. It also works well for those who missed a previous session to get up to speed quickly.

Connections: ‘Competitive brotherhood’ 

At every stage of the session, the coaches connected with the players.

Any downtime, for example, as the players moved to a water break, you could see quick interactions, even if it was just a handshake or a fist bump.

Because of the pace of the session, this isn’t going to be a time for long conversations. However, if needed, a couple of players might be pulled aside to have a quick chat, either to set them an individual challenge or offer them further support.

At the end of the session, many players came over to shake my hand. Many of them have learned this behaviour. If the coaches are doing it, they take this as an example.

More importantly, the players were connecting, especially in the more challenging sessions. The coaching staff knows this isn’t always happening and could always be better. It is a constant work in progress. It comes from both leading by example and setting the right standards.

DAN’S KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A direct hello to a player is always good. It acknowledges that you acknowledge them. It’s even better if they can replicate it in some way. This takes time to build as a culture. The leadership group should be leading the way.

• What are bonding and connecting about? These players are, ultimately, in competition with each other for contracts. Yet, they were clearly supporting each other. If you can help foster a culture of mutual support, making it your task to raise everyone’s standard, it will help you become a better all-round player and person.