Touch Rugby; the Mecca for good Rugby Sevens players

Stumbled upon Creaker's article about a site where there was an article written by the great Rugby Seven’s coach Gordon Tietjiens.

There are many similarities that can be drawn from touch rugby and sevens rugby. Gordon Tietjiens notes “For example I’ll have a look at Touch Rugby tournaments where I can identify players who have sufficient skills to be a very good Sevens players.”

He has 3 key principles. Support play, depth, and using the width of the field.
In touch rugby, support play coming from depth and using the width of the field at the right time is crucial. Another point Gordon mentions is fitness which is vital. Having a squad with a high fitness base is extremely important.
"everything revolves around general play, so you need players who have speed and who are superbly fit. It is important that you share the physical workload across the team so that every team member is fit enough to contribute, particularly off the ball. I am very demanding on fitness and generally I'll train players in a fatigue state as I put a huge emphasis on players working off the ball"

A lot of players such as Jonah Lomu and Christian Cullen went onto higher honours from sevens rugby.
Play hard and play fair. You never know who might be watching. You might even get a phone call one day...

...but for now, bear with the SMS-es from me...

The full article can be viewed at http://rugby7.com/7tietjens.asp

Some great quotes that we can relate to:

"You need to encourage support play both with and without the ball as you need players who will really make the defense work and create holes for the ball carrier"

"I encourage coaches to base their training on how they want to play the game and obviously that will depend on the type of players that they have available to them. You also have to be able to identify what you want with your team and coaches need an ability to analyze the opposition and really look at the teams that you are playing, things like seeing who the steppers are, where the speed is, and what type of player the opposition are using"

"The area that most teams can improve on is getting support players into the pocket and make sure that there is depth in support to ensure continuity in the attack"

"Once players have made the pass then they should drop as they need to ensure that their support realign off the guy in the pocket"

"The bottom line is that you have to be prepared to help players develop and if players really want to make the grade then they have to make a commitment and be prepared to change their lifestyles to make it"