“Losers find reasons to do less and reasons for every thing that goes wrong. Champions always have reasons to do extra and never except anything going wrong without coming up with a way to ensure it never happens again.”
I’ve been in preliminary training for about a two months and I have a whole lot of weight to lose before summer Sevens rugby starts in June.
Coaching high school boys is interesting and complicated but so far in our season both the Varsity boys and the frosh-soph teams are undefeated and looking pretty good.
The middle school team had weak numbers and most of the boys that age are big enough and skilled enough to play frosh-soph and are playing up so we only have three boys that have been playing middle-school regularly and they have had to play with other teams in the area. The good news is that practicing with the bigger boys has strengthened their game and they always have strong showings.
In my rugby playing exploits I have been fumbling around in the forwards for a few years: primarily due to my desire to not have to get totally fit to play, but since most of the teams have been going to a faster more agile packs that run the whole time, I have decided that if I am going to play at all I have to get back down to my more fit weight and fitness.
It’s been a few years since I have played in the backs and it seems a lot more involved then I remember. Of course, I understand the game a whole lot better than I did back then from coaching and refereeing so I suppose I am just much more aware of what the heck is going on.
Speaking of refereeing, I haven’t really refereed in about a year and a half and I tried to do the calls for a scrum tonight and I butchered it miserably. In my defense we had played an hour of touch, done about a half an hour of fitness, and I had just finished running drills in the backs from the fullback position which I am soooooo far from the fitness to play it is ridiculous. Add that to the fact that I have yet to ref a game using the new calls and you can understand how hard it was for me. The fact is, I am absolutely not ready to ref at all and I need to get to practicing soon if I intend to do any refereeing in the future (I suppose the fitness and weight loss couldn’t hurt either).
Back to those drills, I have never really played fullback and running plays from that position is a whole bunch of running. Man that mess is hard work (especially when unfit and a bit to the chubby side). I offer up lots of respect to people who play fullback.
As I final note:
I hope this year to get back to the mindset that has brought me to high levels in various sports: “Losers find reasons to do less and reasons for every thing that goes wrong. Champions always have reasons to do extra and never except anything going wrong without coming up with a way to ensure it never happens again.”
So I have to get fit enough to play fullback and learn the calls to referee scrums and that is that.
RugbyWade