Rugby League Coaching Manuals

"Even when I was a little kid coaches used to say: ‘Run at spaces, not faces'. But how many coaches and players actually apply that?

"Every time the ball is in hand it has an affect on the spaces which present themselves on the field.

"If young players were taught to run at gaps and create gaps at an early age, the game would be in much better shape across the board."

Spaces do not necessarily relate to the attacking side though. Possessing an awareness of space is just as much a key ingredient for a defensive player.

When you talk space you could be referring to the distance between defenders, the distance between the attacking and defending sides, the distance on the outside of the winger, the distances involved when a ball is kicked into space. The applications are virtually limitless.

All this is without considering the variables when space is analysed against time. For example, how does the concept of ‘space' vary when similar distances are involved but with players of differing speed and agility?

A five metre gap between a defender and the teammate to their left may be significantly greater or smaller than the five metres to the person on their right, depending on the reaction time, favoured shoulder and footwork of the two people.

At the elite level, spaces commonly exist for a mere fraction of a second, before they disappear and an opportunity is lost.

Rugby league is in every essence a classic drama of the quick and the dead.

Hence why Waite so highly values the ability to instantaneously recognise chances and seize them.

"What are we looking for them to recognise? It could be heaps of......

Click for RLCM December Resources + Application Form