Blog · pre-season
The rugby coach's off-season checklist: what to fix before preseason starts
A rugby off-season checklist for coaches: turn last season's lessons into a better plan — what to review, what to fix, and how to map the first month of preseason.
The rugby off-season isn’t about doing more work. It’s about making next season easier. That distinction matters, because most of us coach on borrowed evenings — and the temptation in June is to either do nothing or build a 40-page master plan you’ll never open again.
Here’s the trap in between. Most coaches finish a season with a dozen loose thoughts: what went well, what fell apart, who developed, who disappeared, what needs to change. Then those thoughts scatter — into a group chat, the back of a notebook, the fog of memory. Preseason rolls around and you start with the exact same problems, because nothing got captured while it was still fresh. This is a checklist to stop that. Work through it once, this month, and preseason starts from a plan instead of a scramble.
Step 1 — Capture what actually happened
Reflection first. Before you fix anything, write down what you saw — fast, no editing. Six questions:
- What worked better than expected?
- What never really clicked?
- What did we end up repeating every single week?
- What did players struggle with under pressure, not in drills?
- What did we avoid coaching because we ran out of time?
- What would I teach earlier if I could restart the season?
Twenty minutes, bullet points, done. The last two questions are the ones that earn their keep — they tell you what your season was quietly missing.
Step 2 — Pick your three biggest problems, only three
Now you’ve got a page of observations. Do not turn all of it into a to-do list. Pick three.
Maybe it’s poor support lines. Slow ruck arrival. Weak defensive spacing. Players not understanding shape. Low contact confidence. Patchy attendance. Assistants pulling in different directions. Practices that felt random. All real — but if everything is a priority, preseason becomes a scramble. Three is what one coach can actually hold in their head across a session.
Step 3 — Turn problems into coaching themes
This is the bridge from reflection into planning. A problem is a complaint; a theme is something you can build a month of training around. Translate each one:
| Last season’s problem | Off-season theme | Preseason focus |
|---|---|---|
| Players isolated in contact | Support habits | Support lines, reloads, communication |
| Rucks slow and messy | Breakdown speed | Roles, arrival, body height |
| Attack had no shape | Team structure | Width, depth, first-receiver options |
| New players overwhelmed | Simpler onboarding | Core skills, shared language, safety |
Three problems, three themes. That’s the spine of your preseason.
Step 4 — Audit how your practices were built
The themes tell you what to coach. This tells you whether your sessions were any good at delivering it. Be honest:
- Did each practice have one clear objective, or three half-objectives?
- Did the activities build on each other, or were they a playlist?
- Did we spend too long explaining and not enough doing?
- Did players get enough game-like reps, or mostly unopposed drills?
- Did we have a Plan B for the night only nine players showed?
- Did the assistants know what they owned before we walked on the field?
If most of your sessions failed two or more of those, the fix isn’t more drills — it’s structure.
Step 5 — Plan the first month, not the whole season
A season plan written in June is fiction. Plan four weeks. That’s near enough to be real and far enough to set a direction:
| Week | Theme | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reset fundamentals | Confidence and a common language |
| 2 | Contact + continuity | Better support and breakdown habits |
| 3 | Shape | Introduce simple attacking/defensive structure |
| 4 | Game application | Apply the principles under pressure |
Notice it ladders: you can’t run shape in week three if week one didn’t reset the basics. Build week five when week one’s behind you.
Step 6 — Get your staff aligned before the first whistle
A season plan is no use if it only lives in the head coach’s head. Sit your assistants down once — a coffee, not a committee — and agree the boring stuff that derails Tuesdays when it’s left vague:
- What language will we all use for the same things?
- What are our two or three non-negotiables?
- Who owns warm-ups? Who owns forwards, backs, unit work?
- How do we handle a new player who turns up on week two?
- What does a good practice look like, to us specifically?
Twenty minutes of this in July saves you twenty arguments in September.
Step 7 — The before-preseason action list
Everything above, on one card:
- Write down your top 3 lessons from last season
- Pick 3 coaching priorities
- Draft the first 4 weeks
- Choose 5–10 reusable sessions or drills you’ll lean on
- Align assistants on language and standards
- Prepare a Plan B for low numbers
- Decide what success looks like by the first match
If you do nothing else this off-season, do those seven.
Where SetPiece fits
I’m building SetPiece to keep this from staying on a card in a drawer. Instead of starting preseason with scattered notes, old drills, and good intentions, it gives you one place to organize the season, build sessions where the drill minutes always add up, reuse the drills that worked, and run the whole thing from the touchline on a Saturday.
If you coach rugby and want a tool that turns off-season reflection into actual practice plans, join the SetPiece beta. One app, one team, one price.