Soccer Fitness 101 » Rugby

Six Nations Rugby: Henson Loses Fitness Battle

Soccer — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:39:05 +0000

Gavin Henson’s hopes of playing in this season’s Six Nations tournament are over, after his knee injury was diagnosed as being more serious than first feared.

The 25-year-old centre has not started a Test for Wales since the autumn series opener against Australia four months ago, and a second scan on his knee last night revealed a strained posterior cruciate ligament, meaning a lay-off of between three and four weeks.

The 20 times-capped Ospreys star has not been part of Wales coach Gareth Jenkins’ plans during the current Six Nations campaign, despite his team losing successive games against Ireland, Scotland and France.

“He has a ligament injury at the back of his knee,” said Ospreys director of rugby Kevin Hopkins. “It doesn’t need surgery, but he must rest.” Henson now faces a race to be fit for the Ospreys’ EDF Energy Cup semi-final clash against Cardiff Blues at the Millennium Stadium on March 24.

Rugby Union: Reddin Sacking Stirs Player Concerns

Soccer — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:34:55 +0000

Barely a week after the abrupt removal of the head coach, Andy Robinson, the blood-letting at Twickenham continues. The Rugby Football Union has announced the sacking of its head of fitness, Dave Reddin, with immediate effect, to add further fuel to the debate over player welfare.

Reddin, 37, was among Sir Clive Woodward’s chief lieutenants in the build-up to the 2003 World Cup triumph and was described by Woodward as “above any other fitness expert in world sport”. After eight years working with various England teams, however, he has been relieved of his duties only seven months after being told his job was safe following a full-scale review of the England set-up.

It is no secret that England’s fitness levels are worse than they once were but Reddin can hardly shoulder the blame for the increasing pounding the players receive at club level before they even walk through the Twickenham gym door.

The vacancy has been filled internally by another RFU fitness coach, Calvin Morris, and Reddin could not hide his dismay last night. “Although the RFU have explained the rationale for their decision to make my role redundant I am disappointed to be leaving,” he said, echoing Robinson’s call for changes to the current system under which English rugby operates. “I feel proud to have been associated with the most successful period in English rugby history and my hope in leaving is that positive changes are made to recreate that.”

It is becoming clear, though, that the RFU’s elite rugby director, Rob Andrew, is prepared to be utterly ruthless in his desire to shake up the top end of the English game. There have been an alarming number of injuries to key squad members, not least to Jonny Wilkinson during Andrew’s time as director of rugby at Newcastle, and Reddin did not always have a harmonious relationship with club fitness coaches with whom, latterly, he was supposed to be liaising more closely over player welfare.

Nor have England had a good record of keeping their selected players in one piece long enough during the week to take the field at Twickenham. The props Andrew Sheridan and Matt Stevens have both picked up problematic neck or shoulder injuries in training rather than during games. Even when England moved their Test week base from Bagshot to Bisham Abbey, amid claims their old practice pitch at Pennyhill Park was too hard and had been a factor in the lengthy injury list, they lost the full-back Iain Balshaw before the first South Africa Test with a calf strain.

Whether at Robinson’s instigation or not, the England squad also spent what most onlookers felt should have been valuable training-field time at Loughborough University in October pumping iron in the gym. Somewhere along the line the balance between cultivating skills and building yet more muscle has been lost.

Reddin could also have done without the former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio criticising England’s fitness before the season started. Even Andrew, though, acknowledges Reddin will have no problem getting another job. “Dave Reddin made a huge impact during his eight years with the RFU in developing a world-class fitness programme to support the senior side. His work ensured that England arrived at the 2003 Rugby World Cup in peak condition and he was a major reason behind the team’s success at that tournament. I’m sure that he will continue to make a major contribution to elite sport in this country.”

If nothing else, Reddin’s departure will also fuel the debate about the strain being placed on England’s best players. Last year he admitted: “The players have got to be the most important consideration and sometimes that gets lost. They are the ones being squeezed. What I’d hate to see is rugby end up in a football-type situation where the coach gets the players two days before an international with levels of expectation still sky-high. I don’t see how that can possibly work for anybody.”

Yesterday’s news also means that the break-up of the World Cup-winning management team is almost complete. Apart from the medicos and physiotherapists, the only survivor with a direct input is the video analyst Tony Biscombe who, given the current turnover rate, has every reason to start looking over his shoulder.

Rugby Union: England Fitness Coach Reddin is Sacked

Soccer — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:07:35 +0000

Dave Reddin yesterday became the fifth member of the England rugby union management team to lose his job this year after a record-equalling run of defeats but the unprecedented blood-letting appears to be over with the 2003 World Cup winners finally concentrating on the defence of their trophy in France next September.

Reddin’s position as fitness and nutrition coach was made redundant by the Rugby Football Union yesterday, shortly before a meeting of the Club England committee at the Army and Navy Club in Pall Mall considered how to fill the void left by the departure of the head coach, Andy Robinson, last month. With Robinson and Reddin following last summer’s coaching casualties, Phil Larder, Joe Lydon and Dave Alred, out of the door at Twickenham, the RFU is desperate for some continuity with only 10 matches left before the World Cup and wants to secure the triumvirate of coaches: Brian Ashton, John Wells and Mike Ford.

Ashton is expected to be made the first among equals when the RFU decides the make-up of the England management team later this month but there is a growing feeling at Twickenham that the three should be reinforced by a team manager who, although not having a direct input into coaching, would deal with the media.

There is a lobby for Dean Richards, the former England No8 who is currently Harlequins’ director of rugby, to be appointed and the RFU has the money to buy him out of his contract, but the management board wants to be made aware of the views of the three coaches before making its decision on December 20.

Rob Andrew, the RFU’s director of elite rugby, has played a pivotal role in both the departure of Robinson and the plans for the future. Calls by some Club England members yesterday to be given unilateral powers to make appointments were knocked down but the union is keen on a new body to run the elite game, made up of all the interested parties, including the players.

Rugby Union: Top Players Are Facing Burn-out, Says Robert Kitson

Soccer — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:53:02 +0000

Adrenalin can work wonders but, in the aftermath of Sunday’s sensational Heineken Cup game between Munster and Wasps, there were some exhausted rugby men yesterday. Many confessed to feeling mentally and physically drained and they were just the ones watching on television.

Amid all the justified euphoria about a match which has raised the European game to new heights, however, the rueful look on Lawrence Dallaglio’s face when asked to reflect on next month’s final against Toulouse spoke volumes. England’s warrior captain and his fellow weary Wasps are aware life is not that simple.

Barely had they flown in from Dublin yesterday lunchtime, for instance, than Wasps were required to refocus on the domestic front. They are due to visit a vengeful Gloucester at Kingsholm on Saturday and must then entertain Leicester the following weekend, crucial games they dare not lose if they wish to overtake Bath at the top of the Zurich Premiership.

If they do finish second, they will have no option but to navigate a further bruising play-off on May 15, with their Heineken Cup showdown against the holders Toulouse scheduled only six days before the Zurich grand final on May 29. After which Dallaglio and co are required to drag their protesting bodies back down under for Tests on successive weekends against New Zealand (twice) and Australia. If they are still standing by July – and remember post-World Cup fatigue was already a creeping factor during the Six Nations – they really will deserve a medal.

Dallaglio’s stock response – “That’s life, it’s part of the job” – goes a long way towards explaining Wasps’ consistent success. They are, without doubt, the fittest club team in Britain, if not Europe, and the assistant coach Shaun Edwards’ mantra – “To rest is to rust” – is shared by the squad. Winning also makes aches and pains more bearable. But when club games start becoming as intense as Test matches, as they are now, how much more can even the healthiest bodies take? And, looking ahead, what kind of battered England tour party will embark for Auckland in the first week of June?

The last question, of course, is not top priority for Wasps but it is certainly occupying England’s fitness adviser David Reddin. Like everyone else, he watched Sunday’s game and is conscious of the danger of leading English players suffering burn-out not only this summer but in the long term.

“These guys are not machines,” admitted Reddin yesterday, stressing the need for the clubs and Twickenham to work together to ease the burden on their shared assets. Reddin will be in touch with Wasps’ fitness guru Craig White, for example, to discuss the importance of not over-training the likes of Dallaglio and Simon Shaw at what he concedes is “the Groundhog Day stage” of the season. He is confident, though, that if any group of players can cope it is Wasps’ England men, simply by virtue of the fitness base they built up last summer.

“In my opinion Wasps have got the best physical set-up in the country. More than any other club they are very good at planning their work a long time in advance. They put a big emphasis on conditioning so, from my point of view, that creates a smaller problem for the England boys than at other places where perhaps they don’t.

“These are not new issues. This year it’s Wasps, in previous years it has been Leicester. It’s just a question of working around them. The intensity of big club games is going to become an issue but occasions like yesterday are also great for the international game because they are better preparation for Test matches.”

Reddin also foresees more individual-based fitness programmes and clubs requiring bigger squads but, for the time being, it appears few England squad members will be excused the summer tour on grounds of fatigue. “There’s no rest for the wicked,” he said. “I’m very sure when we arrive in New Zealand and Australia we’ll be facing a very hungry, fit group of opposition players. It’s up to our guys to make sure they’re up to the challenge.”

Wasps’ bruised heroes can at least be thankful they are not French. As things stand, Toulouse face midweek French championship play-offs either side of the Heineken Cup final weekend which they cannot ignore if they wish to be sure of qualification for Europe next season. “It is obscene and completely lacking in any respect for the players,” stormed the Toulouse coach Guy Nov8;s. By far the biggest threat to the fast-rising quality of European rugby remains the unsustainable, bloated fixture list.