Return to play: Games, drills and fitness testing

You want your training to be purposeful. That means players feel they’ve gained something from the session.

Here’s a mix of handling, fitness and kicking games to help populate your training sessions for the return to play. It looks a lot like pre-season of course. You will see the fundamentals of skills, teamwork and movement, but little or no focus on tactics or contact.

There will be plenty of time for that before the season really starts. In the meantime, keep sessions short, sharp and safe.

The Return to play: Social distancing line game comes from Nuneaton head coach, Geraint Davies. Watch how the players develop their own games within the game.

Lions Academy has plenty of experience in creating activities to keep players engaged. Their Return to play: Social distance crazy kick game is fun, purposeful and has some hidden fitness elements. A good game for all the players, and one you can set up for early arrivers at training.

Heads up technical passing drill is a good breakout activity to focus on skills. Ideal for social distancing, it will test better players to handle more accurately. You can run a much slower version for developing players.

And if you are going to do some conditioning, then Test your team’s running fitness gives you a base to measure their progress. Easy to set up and run with a large number of players, it has always been one of my go-to tests.