Masterclasses

Rugby masterclass

Physical development

﻿- [Alistair] Hi everyone, my name's Alistair, and I'm delighted to introduce our rugby Masterclass session that is brought to us by Darren Carew and the Welsh Rugby Union.

- Hello everyone at Oak National Academy, I'm Darren Carew, the Disability Rugby Coordinator for the Welsh Rugby Union. I'm really thrilled to be able to speak to you. And I'll hopefully share some of my fantastic activities. Now, before we get into that, my sort of background or journey into sport is a bit different to most people. As in that, well, I used to play a lot of rugby, but then I joined the army. I spent all my time being a soldier. Sadly, while I was being a soldier and I was away in a place called Afghanistan, got quite badly injured. I ended up getting a robot leg, or a prosthetic as we call it. And I took a bump on the head. So, I got a little bit of a head injury as well. while I was recovering from my injuries, I started to go into adaptive events, such as the Warrior Games, which is designed for injured soldiers to compete in, to help you with your recovery. While I was there and I was doing that, I really, really got a passion for coaching. So, when I got back to Wales, I got involved with rugby again and quite quickly got picked up by the Welsh Rugby Union to work with them on the Disability Sports programme. So, over the space of three years, we've gone from having one programme to now being able to help children as young six, right the way up to adults of 60 plus, to have positive rugby experiences regardless of their disability. I hope you enjoy the videos and it's been lovely speaking to you. Take care, bye bye.

- Darren used to be a soldier but sadly suffered a bad injury which meant he had to have a prosthetic or as Darren calls it, a robot leg. Darren loves playing sports and he went back to Wales and started coaching. And before long he was picked up by the Welsh Rugby Union to be their Disability Rugby Coordinator. He coaches people from the age of six all the way through to people who are 60 years old , which is amazing. And helps people to become more active and enjoy rugby.

- Hi everyone, and welcome to Jersey For All, the fun and inclusive rugby sessions that you can try at home. And zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. I'm Darren. And I'll be your coach for these sessions. So, every session is gonna have a warm-up, three activities, and a cool down at the end. So, I'm a rugby coach. And when I run my sessions, I use all this sort of stuff, but there's no reason why you have to use a normal size rugby ball. So, if you haven't got that at home you can use something else like this, a small rugby ball. Haven't got a small rugby ball, you can use a big rugby ball. If I haven't got a rugby ball, you can use a tennis ball. If you haven't got a tennis ball. Don't throw my Ted. You can use Ted or something soft like that. I'm not gonna mention footballs, because they're too soft. Now, the other type of stuff is when we're marking out the areas, I use something like this, a cone or a different type of cone like this. But there's no reason why you can't use something like this, like Scotch. Okay? Again, nice and soft. It doesn't matter if you fall over and you can mark up that area, nice and easy. There you go. Okay. So it's time to go on with our warm-up. Now, before we can start doing any fun stretches, what we need to do first is a bit of a pulse raiser. Now I've got, Owen and Justin here. My super rugby players and they're gonna be helping me out. Now, if you're marking up an area out in a garden or somewhere like that, I don't expect you to have cones like we talked about earlier, as you can see, we set up some Teds. And what you can do is, you can set them up in any sort of way that you want. Whatever works with the amount of space that you've got. So, I set up a bit of a triangle. We're gonna start off with just doing a little bit of walking around, so, off we go guys. Now, you could be doing this around the sofa but be careful. And we're gonna go a little bit faster and a little bit faster. So, let get up into a bit of a jog now and a little bit faster. That's really good movement. And when I say "Go," I want you to sprint and try and catch the player in front of you. Ready? Three, two, one, go, go, go, go, go, go, go and freeze. Okay. Let's get on with the stretches. Okay. So let's get our stretches going. So, the first one we're gonna do is catch-chase. Now, I like a catch. Justin, "You like a catch, don't you?" Owen, not so much 'cause she is a teenager. So, what we gonna do? We're gonna go big arms. Lift our arms out like this. I'm gonna call, "Big arms, big arms, big arms." And then we're gonna catch and wrap our arms. And then we'll wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, all the way down like that. Making sure now at home, now you've got enough space that you're not gonna slap anyone in the face or knock over any them stuff. Let's give it a go. Are you ready guys? Big arms, bigger, should we go bigger? Bigger, come Bigger, come bigger. Okay. And catch and wiggle it down. We did good, let's do it again. Big arms, bigger, bigger. Okay, and catch and wiggle it down. Okay. So Owen, when we did big arms, where did you feel the stretch? In your chest, brilliant. And Justin, when we did the wiggles, where did you feel the stretch?

- Down here.

- Down your sides. Okay. So let's do one more, ready? So, big arms, bigger, bigger, bigger and catch and wiggle, wiggle, wiggle all the way down. There we go. Let's get on with the next activity. Okay. So, for our next stretch what we're gonna do is something called wind mills. Now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna start off with our hands up in the air like this and we're gonna rotate our arms forward all the way around up to the front. So, start off nice and slow. We're just gonna bring our arms all the way around. Now guys, when I say go, I want you to go as fast as you can. And when we get to here, just clap your hands to the front. Okay? So, ready? Three, two, one and go. Start speeding up. And we're going faster, five, four, three, two, one. Okay. And shake your arms off. Okay. Where did we feel that Owen? Right the way through the shoulders, good. So, we're working properly now. Let's do the same thing again, but this time let's go backwards to it. Start at the top and we're gonna bring our arms back slowly. Now, we can still clap at the front, going around. Nice and steady. And when I say, "Go," we're gonna speed up, Ready? And go. Faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, five, four, three, two, one and shake come off. How does that feel? Right. Should we go for ninja level. Let's see if this works out. So, this time we're gonna put our hands in the air but we're gonna go with our arms in opposite directions. So, let's see if Owen and Justin can do it. I know I can. Hands in the air. One forward, one back and go. Really good. Now, when I say, "Go," I want you to go super fast. Ready and go and shake them off. Huh, did you manage? Did you manage? Did I manage? Yes I did. Okay. Let's get on with the next stretch. Okay. So, the next stretch we're gonna do is called little to large. Now, with little to large. When I call out little to large, me and my guys are gonna react. Now, I want you to try and do the same? Okay. So when I call little, we're gonna get nice and nice low. Ready? Little. Down super low like this. Now, this is quite painful for me when I get down super low. So, I can't really do a squat. So, if you can squat, do a squat. If you can't, just try and lean down as far as you can get. And when I call large, you're gonna go up big arms up in the air. Now you guys, when you reach up in the air I want you to roar as loud as you can. Okay? So, let's see how that works. Ready? Little, down nice and low. And large, arms up.

- Agh.

- Agh, I think you can do better than that. When you get down nice and low. I want go . Ready? Try one more time. Little and large.

- Agh.

- Agh, really good. That's much, much better. Where did you feel the stretch when we were in large, Justin?

- Down my abs.

- Oh, good. Down your abs?

- Yes.

- That's some high abs. All right. So, if you're a wheelchair user it's really important that you understand that 'cause you're sat in the chair and you're sort of hunched over a little bit, you're really tight up the chest. So, when we go call little and we get down low to low, reach the front of your chair. And then when I call large, wake up nice and upright as much as you can. Really try to open up your chest and get that stretch. Let's do one more. Ready? Little and large. Agh. Now, we could take this to ninja level. I wanna see if you guys can do this. Okay. So, when I call little, I want you to get down nice and low. But when we call large, I want you to jump up in the air and roar. Ready? Little, down nice and low and large, up and jump really good. Let's get on with the next stretch. Okay. So for the next stretch, we're gonna do something called Union Jacks. Now with this, I want you imagine that you've got a flag out in front of you. And if we go to the corners of the flag, opposite corners, then put our hands there like that. And then we're gonna pull back and pinch with our shoulder blades as best we can. So, if that's the corner there, switch to the other corner and pull back. And then we go to the middle of the sides of the flag and we pull back like that. Now, before we give this a go when we got our arms in this position, we push forward. Where do we feel that stretch, Owen? In between your shoulder blades. Exactly, cause we're stretching forward. And when we pull back like that, Justin. Where do we feel the stretch?

- All through our chest.

- All through our chest. You've gotta be a little bit dynamic, if we'd give it a go. Are you ready? Corners, boom, and change, boom, and middle, boom, and corners, boom, and corners, boom, and middle, boom, and shake them off. I'm feeling good. Are you feeling good? ALL right. Let's get on with the next one. Okay. Team. So, the first activity we are gonna do today is called big boppers. Now, again as you can see, I used our trustee teddies to mark out an area. Now, obviously you need to mark out an area, be it indoors or outdoors but make sure you use something soft and make sure you're not too close to a hard surface because if one of your superstar rugby players comes bouncing out with a box. They don't wanna bump into anything and hurt themselves. So, the way this works is that Owen and Justin are gonna be passing the ball around. They're gonna be zooming around and then I'm gonna call boppers. And then, whoever's got the ball in their hands becomes the bopper and has to chase down the other player and tap them on the body with the ball and then they gotta stand still. Now, if there's more than one player, you've gotta keep going until everyone's been caught. Let's see what it looks like. Are you guys ready? Three, two, one and go and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass. Boppers, chase him down, chase him down, chase him down. Oh, well done. Okay. Let's see that one more time. Ready? Get ready. Three, two, one and pass and pass and pass and pass and boppers. Get her, get her, get her. Oh, good effort. Now, we can make this a little bit more fun. So, like I said earlier on, you can use a rugby ball, any type of ball you've got. There's a reason why I call it big boppers. It's because we use this one. This is the big bopper ball. Let's see if we can do that. Chop me over. Ready? Here we go. Three, two, one and go and pass and pass and pass and boppers. Chase, chase, chase, chase, chase. Oh, did he get you? Oh, still going. Oh, still going. Agh, there you go. Okay. Hold it there. Now, if you want, you could change up the size that you're using. We make this smaller to make it harder, make it bigger to make it harder. Or if you want, you can add in more boppers if you've got more people in your household. But why not try and give that a go. Let me know what you do. Okay. So the next activity we're gonna be doing then, is called tramline passing. So, with tramline passing, all we're looking to do is a nice soft pop pass. We're gonna go load to high. When we're catching a ball, we need to make sure we've got a target up. Now that target, we don't want it out, big arms like this, like a zombie. And we don't wanna be close arms in like a T. Rex. We wanna have it in between. So, Justin get your target up ready. Okay. And off we go. Pass across, low to high, pass across. Okay. Nice and soft with the passing and hold it there. Okay. So, you guys have absolutely smashed that nice and easy. Okay? So, how can we make this a little bit harder? How about we do a clap catch, okay? So, get your hands up ready. Ready? Three, two, one and clap and catch, clap and catch, clap and catch, clap and catch and hold it there. Okay. So, one thing I would say, with your hands up like this, you're just gonna go clap catch. If your hands are down here, you've gotta come up, clap your hands and then catch. You'll lose a bit of time. Okay. So, get your target up nice and ready and let's go. Ready? Three, two, one, go. Clap catch, clap catch, clap catch. Much better and hold it there. Yeah. Let's make it harder like you said. And let's move back. Watch my teddies. So, we're gonna do the same pass again, but this time we're gonna put a little bit more power into it. Now, make sure we don't throw it so hard and we launch it all the way over there. Or if you guys back home, make sure you're doing it indoors. You don't launch it through the ceiling, mom and dad won't be happy. So, here we go, low to high and off we go. Pass across and pat, there we go and pass. Nice passing guys. There we go. Nice and easy. Make sure we get those targets up and hold it there. Like that is way too easy for you. So, we're gonna make it a little bit harder. So, this time all we're gonna do is we're gonna throw it up but we wanna throw it not higher than where my hand is, right here. Okay? So, you don't zoom it up through the ceiling and definitely do not throw it 100 million miles up into space. Okay? I know how strong you are, Owen. I see you working out. Okay? When we throw the ball. Okay? The ball comes across. We need to reach up and grab it and pull it into our body. Okay? So we are ready? Three, two, one, go. Okay. A bit higher. Reach and grab. We're gonna put our arms up in the air and hold. Okay. So, with that, what we wanna try and do is get our hands up in the air, so, we can reach and grab that ball. We don't wanna let it drop all the way down. Tree, two, one, go. Reach and grab much better and reach and grab one more time. Reach and grab, there we go, and hold. Okay, well done guys. We've got it there then. Okay. Let's make another challenge here. Let's come in onto these ones. Okay? Don't hit over Hero or Aussie. And what we're gonna do is a nice soft pass. But it's gonna be a 30 second challenge. So, I'm gonna count 30 seconds down and Justin I want you to count how many passes you make. Okay? Ready? Three, two, one, go. 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20. Keep going. 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, and hold. How many did we do?

- They are about 29 or 30.

- 29 or 30. Okay. I reckon you guys at home could do better? So, let's see what you can do. Okay. So, the next activity then is the assault course. Sounds scary, but it isn't. Okay? You're gonna really enjoy this one. Now again, depending on how much space you've got, you could compact this down. You can do it in short sections if you want to. You can just do the skills box. Okay? Let's see what it looks like. So, Justin is gonna keep the ball in two hands. The first part is the slalom. We are just gonna work through his way through the teddies off we go, Justin. In and out, and in and out, and in and out, and hold. Now, an important thing about that is if we're setting this up and we're a wheelchair user. Make sure mom and dad put enough space in between them. So, we can zoom in and out without bumping anything over. Okay? The next part then is three cone tops. So, off we go, Justin? One, and two, and three. And then the last part then, is the skills box. Now, with the skills box, the first one Justin is gonna put the ball on his head and do three spins. Off we go Justin. That's one, two and three and exit around hero bear, and all the way down and pass to Owen. But now we're gonna see it full speed. Off we go then Owen, and in and out, and in and out, in and out, in and out, and cone taps, one, and two, and three, and skills box three spins. That's one, and two, and three, and around hero bear and zoom it back down and hold it there. So, the cool thing is with this is we can change up the activities to the skills box as much as we want. So, let's see some different examples. This time we're gonna do three passes. So, I'm gonna move over by here and you get mom and dad to help out. Justin, are you ready? And off we go. Zoom in and out, in and out, in and out, and one, and two, and three, and then three nice soft passes. One, two, three, and then around hero bear and zoom back down, there we go. Get your hands ready Owen, target up. And here we go, in and out, in and out, in and out, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. And one, and two, and three. And then we count one, two, three, and around we go and hold it there. Okay. So, to change it up again, just to show some more of the skills box activities we can do. This time, when the kids zoom up, they're gonna put the ball around their body. Now, if you're a wheelchair user, what you can do is pass to a parent and do a spin inside the box and then get a ball back before you zoom off. Ready? Three, two, one, go. In and out, in and out, in and out, one, and two, and three, and into the box and a ball around your body. Nice and controlled, nice and steady, good work and zoom around, really good. Take it back down, target up already Owen and catch. And in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out. And the cone taps, one, two, and three, and into the box. Ball nice and slowly around your body and zoom off or out. Okay, there we go. Okay. One more now, and this is one of my favourite one. So, this time I'm gonna protect hero bear from getting knocked over. Justin is gonna zoom through. He's gonna pass the ball to me, zoom around the back. I'm gonna pass the ball back to him and then he can zoom all the way down and give the ball to Owen. Ready Justin? Three, two, one, go in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out. And one and two and three and pass, and around catch and zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, and pass. And in and out, in and out, in and out. Owen, here we go and one, and two, and three and pop and catch and zoom. There we go. Well done guys. Lets see what you can do.

- [Alistair] In our Masterclass session, Darren leads a warm-up. He helps us to move in different directions and at different speeds, and also helps us to work on the rugby skills of catching and passing. Remember, all of our lessons can be adapted regardless of your child's need using the STEP principle. And that's thinking about the space, the task, the equipment we use, and how people can help us. If your child would like to practise the skills from our Masterclass, please remember to ensure the area is safe and that your child is feeling fit and well to take part in the lesson and check that you are wearing the right clothes for sport and physical activity. A huge thank you to Darren and the WRU from all of us here at Oak National Academy for supporting our Masterclass sessions. If you'd like to share your work with Oak National, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational, and using the hashtag, learn with Oak. We'd love to see your amazing rugby skills.

Rugby masterclass

Rugby masterclass

These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

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