it does fascinate the difference between stamina and sprint as it is totally different,

my mrs first view of a winger was John Bentley at Halifax and was amazed of his leg size

smitten to RL since

thanks for all assistance I will take all info in and if anyone can go deeper into why the difference it would be far more entertaining than arguing stadiums

remember when that sprinter turned out for cas, he chased a kick for 80 yards, then wanted to lie down for an hour.

lindsay rotherford could shift a bit. remember that try against fulham at belle vue as if it were yesterday.

The young full back side stepped him like he wasn't there and Chambers went flying past.

Bentos, what a legend. Is he still playing? I think he was turning out for a local RU team a couple of years back.

He was flippin' quick though

Thats where the sports specific conditioning comes in. All his life he trained to perform over a 10 second max time scale and as such he conditioned his body to do just that via his training. His anaerobic system was superb, but his aerobic system not nearly prepared for the demands of rugby league.

That is the point about young lads going to Harriers who are doing it for the benefit of improving speed at rugby. Harriers will certainly give coaching and technique advise related to improving sprinting for athletics, but its a little more complex than that because you have to look at technique for a rugby player that will improve his speed but also not have a negative impact on his ability to take contact etc.

Rugby players generally when looking to improve speed need to improve on the initial acceleration phase as very rarely do players get into the "flight" phase so it is important to consider the game you are playing prior to any conditioning/coaching is undertaken.

It's a purely unscientific view, but our U13's team recently recruited a couple of lads who've been playing football since they were 6 or 7; they're relatively green to RL, but are scoring tries for fun (one lad has scored 13 tries in 3 games) mostly by virtue of being able to accelerate from a standing start and change direction very quickly. I'm not a fan of the game at all, but these lads are almost certainly benefitting in RL terms from their football training.

In the context of this conversation, I guess a decent football training regime will include some sprint/speed work that's adapted to be appropriate to the sport?

Indeed football is an intermittent sprint sport, so change in pace is essential and they undertake a high level of high intensity short sprints and agility training and obviously the crossover has benefited their ability to play rugby. They do a lot of footwork training in football at a young age, which i would like to see more of in league.

There are areas obviously though that they may struggle on as well given that they came to the game late, especially as they mature, or rather those around them do and the game becomes more physical.

The lads in question are, fortunately, big raw-boned eejits who seem to relish the contact element of RL; what they lack in technique, they make up for in enthusiasm. Meanwhile, The Clan is working on their technique with some tackle-bag beastings.

My own son has a different issue - like me, he's below average size and has decided to compensate by hitting the weights and building strength; I can't see too much harm in it provided that he does relatively low weights and doesn't work to failure, but there is conflicting advice on t'internet about kids and weight training.

It depends on what stage of development he is. I would suggest bodyweight exercises especially if he is hitting maturity and about to go through a broth spurt. Too much weight lifting etc can cause issues with developing bones.

I do a body weight session myself every night and it is far more intense than my morning session in the gym. In my opinion although its seen as "non macho" bodyweight exercises are fantastic and very gruelling if worked into a good 20 to 30 minute session and will result in great strength improvements in a relatively short period of time, also excellent for core stability which assists in many aspects of our game especially prevention of injury.

Pretty much agree with Johnh so far,

We will be doing lots of ladder and slalom work during the off season.
Very rarely during a game of rugby do players run at speed in straight lines.

Sprint sessions will be mainly short distances although with some longer distance drills to improve speed endurance.

Cadence is a more individual thing and a bit of analysis will be required before planning sessions to improve technique.

Closer to the start of the season we will be utilising more game related practice that will incorporate elements of the above drills.