TOO much emphasis has been given to winning rather than developing basic and core skills in rugby in primary schools and secondary schools, says Nacanieli Saumi, Fiji’s first professional coach to be a director of coaching and head coach in a 1st division club in a tier one nation.
Today is the final part of the three-part interview which began on Sunday as we look back at the year 2015 and reflection our achievements in the sporting year, the highlight of which was the Rugby World Cup in England.
Times Sport
With your level of rugby coaching, what is your ultimate goal?
Nacanieli Saumi
The ultimate goal for every coach is to be involved with an elite rugby team and this goal effects my rugby interest.
I have been lucky to be involved in the rugby professional era for seventeen years, from the year 1996-2013, and the ultimate was acquiring the position of director of rugby and head coach of a championship (1st division) professional club at the elite level in England.
At this time, I am involved with rugby coaching at primary, secondary schools and the grassroots rugby players at club level enriching them with rugby technical knowledge. This enables me to map out different pathways to develop consistent rugby performers thus aiming towards the creation of an elite team.
These pathways will build a trend of consistent flow of elite players into a national team where the coaches only have the responsibility to identify and implement various rugby structural framework for the team.
Times Sport
What key areas of Fijian rugby would you like to help improve?
Nacanieli Saumi
I would like to improve the rugby coaches of young players in schools because it is the rugby factory for Fiji.
One of the key area needed to be developed within Fiji Rugby is coaching. The coaching education pathway and coaches experiences and own professional development are crucial to the development of the game in Fiji.
Players will only improve technically and tactically and become aware of their development skill set if they are coached correctly.
Coaches need to be always seeking to improve, analyse and evaluate their own coaching methodology.
How we coach is, perhaps, as important as what we coach. We know that people learn in different ways and so one style of coaching may suit one type of learner but not others. So, it is best that a coach varies how they coach according to what and who they are coaching. Coaches need to be able to use a range of styles and to select the most appropriate for the given participants, context and purpose. No one style is better or worse than the other. There is a time to tell, a time to watch and listen, a time to let players do more thinking and take more responsibility.
Times Sport
Views have been shared in this column before that there has been too much emphasis on winning with grassroots rugby. What’s your view and share some of your experiences ?
Nacanieli Saumi
All coaches of young players have to remember that winning is not everything in sport. I know from watching schools rugby that there is a great temptation to concentrate on winning above all else. Many games are now screened on various media platforms. Schools rugby has always attracted coverage but the attention and publicity is so much greater these days.
The attention on winning is great in one sense but it does not necessarily produce good rugby players. You have to get that balance between fundamental skills and being obsessed with winning.
Coaches have to put the building blocks in place for young players to develop their skills. They should always look to establish “building blocks” of the fundamental skills, such as catching, passing, tackling and breakdown approach “work-ons” before the win-all mentality. It is essential for young players to be taught those fundamental skills so that they can enjoy the game.
Every session I coach, no matter what the team, whether international, club or school, I include basic, core skill work. It may sound repetitive but you have to work on those skills. Repetition brings boredom but it bores a clinical edge. Every player of whatever level has to work at those skills. Some sessions I break down into fifteen or twenty-minute slots for each of those skills and I always make sure that when doing attacking drills the players have defenders in front of them. That creates competition and makes them react to real players and events rather than running round tackling bags.
Everyone can look good in those circumstances. Some people will say that the core skills should be given to the best players but look at some of the very best in the Rugby World Cup, some international centres could not pass the ball on the run because they had not been taught properly in their early days.
A good coach is able to analyse correctly the strengths and weaknesses of their team and then act appropriately. Building on the strengths and helping players improve the weaknesses is obviously a key part of being a good coach but it is also about how the coach goes about this.
I understand the concerns about the number of injuries in the sport, but if the core skills are coached properly then you are giving the player the best chance to play the game safely. Good tackle technique is a must — if coached well, the player has less chance of injury. You have to have the courage to play the game.
Coaches need to be very good at session and season planning. Part of the joy of rugby is that it provides the opportunity for players to express themselves, as the popular term has it; in other words, to show what they can do. But players can only express themselves fully when they have the security of knowing what they can expect from their teammates and what their teammates expect of them. A large part of the coach’s job is to put this confidence in place. He can do this by gradually developing patterns of play, these patterns being evolved out of the capabilities of the players, the demands of their competition, and I suppose his objectives. The trick is to find a balance between these factors.
Times Sport
You worked with the under-19 cricket team. What sort of work did you do with them?
Nacanieli Saumi
I was approached by the CEO for Cricket Fiji to implement a few basic ideas of training for their youth high performance unit for three months at the end of the year 2013. Most of these current young players were still between the age of 14-17 years and they need guidance on how to become consistent performers for their individual roles in the team.
They have to go through various screening tests to determine individual training requirements, various specific endurance tests to measure work rate ratios according to positional status in the team.
The goal was to qualify for the 2016 U19 Cricket World Cup. It has been a tremendous effort from young boys and all the staff of Cricket Fiji so I wish them well for the tournament.
Times Sport
Some advice to players and coaches?
Nacanieli Saumi
As a former professional player, director and head coach, my personal advice to players is not to rush the decision of playing rugby overseas. They have to seek consultation from rugby professionals who have played, coached and managed the game as professionals as we have a number of local agents trying to influence young players for overseas contracts.
All young players must observe, learn and practise characteristic behaviours as this is the main ingredients needed as a professional athlete, then work hard on their rugby fundamental skills, conditioning, consistent performance in training and competition phase to achieve elite standards before embarking on their overseas journey.
I was involved with Ratu Kadavulevu School U18 rugby team this year, preparing their preseason strength and conditioning programs and rugby structural framework. I notice that after being crowned champions, local agents began contacting players and their parents, suggesting that certain overseas clubs are interested with them.
For my knowledge, most players are approached and recruited a year before a new season starts, those who are recruited late, especially students are enrolled as academy players and granted allowances (not salary) because of the governed child labour employment laws.
The local agents are remunerated for that very little time they spend with the players but the parents and the school who has helped in their long term development receives absolutely zero reward. A few questions needed to be raised as whether parents and school need a share of the local agent’s fees from their overseas superiors as they are the key instigators of that well developed and nurtured product.
There is a need by the World Rugby body to regulate agents on FRU’s recommendation.
We all understand that life is harder but players have to be reminded that life was always hard but good decision making with understanding makes life easier. All students should remember that you should concentrate on your studies to have a profession because education will help pay the bills.
My philosophy is that “rugby is part of life but education is life”.
My advice to local coaches is to be innovative so that we can create better decision making players for Fiji in the future.
Rugby is about options. The team that makes the best choices will win if not every match, most of them.
