CAPE TOWN – While Stormers assistant coach Dawie Snyman feels that the “missing personal touch” has made both training and coaching tougher, he is pleased with the commitment his players have shown with regards to training during the national lockdown.
Some players have got quite creative in terms of making sure they remain physically ready for whenever rugby resumes, but on the collective front, Snyman yesterday explained that there has been constant communication between players and coaches regarding training and diets. Spending weeks off the field will certainly come with its fair share of issues, and how this time spent in isolation will impact players’ reaction and skill execution is one of them.
It is something the Stormers coaching group are trying to combat, though, and Snyman added that they have been using a visual training programme to try and keep a decline in visual awareness, skill execution and reaction to a minimum.
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“The big thing with that (skills) will be timing,” the attack coach said.
“It’s going to take time to get used to the ball again running at speed and those offloads. We’ve given the guys drills to do at home, so they’ve been doing what they can. They’ve also been doing the EyeGym programmes on their laptops just to work on their visual skills. But it is going to take a bit of time just to get used to space again.
“We’ve been quite lucky with our squad in the sense that they’ve been quite good with communication. We send them clips, but I think that personal touch is missing you know, just standing next to a guy and being able to talk to him about how things are going or about his game or about training.
“But it’s been working well, the guys have created good routines for themselves. They’ve been following quite a strict diet and it’s really tough training on your own, so they’ve shown good commitment. It’s easy to drive to Bellville where you’ve got 40 of your mates waiting and to put in a hard session, but to do it on your own is a little different. But there’s been good feedback.
“We send out training stuff they need to do and a lot of the guys would film and ask the coaches questions like ‘am I doing it right’ or ‘is there anything wrong with my technique’.”
SA Rugby yesterday announced that competitions such as the Currie Cup (both Premier and First Division), the Rugby Challenge, a local franchise and union competition planned for June to August as an alternative to Super Rugby and the PRO14, Test matches and the World Sevens Series are still part of their planning for 2020, which makes it crucial that players remain rugby ready.