Building a Challenging Fixture List
Last week Neil Rollings posted an article reflecting on the nature of a fixture list within a school environment. He made several excellent points regarding the need for balance within a fixture list and its centrality to the quality of pupil experience. I believe that the building and maintenance of a fixture list should be one of the main priorities of a successful Director of Sport and it is one of the most obvious representations of a programme’s philosophy.
The key question is to ask yourself how performance or development focused your environment is. The two are not mutually exclusive, but we all know of schools that will structure their lists with little challenge from week to week to ensure a healthy ‘win-loss’ ratio at the end of the season. In any programme, regardless of comparative strength, an undefeated season cannot be a healthy performance indicator if the objective is long term development.
One of the principles that I refer to in building a fixture list is that of the ‘Periodisation of Challenge’ where periods of higher challenge are punctuated with easier fixtures. This allows for a manipulation of the pressure on pupils and also allows the individual coach to use tactical periodisation, employing a long term focus in changing the developmental goals of a team throughout a season.
Another key factor is the number of fixtures played and time playing compared to the time spent training. We are all aware of the risks of psychological burnout or overuse injury in adolescents. These risks are especially high around the period of adolescence and during Peak Height Velocity, as a result of high playing loads. These risks are especially prevalent in rugby and the number of games played by young sportspeople should be monitored very closely. It is with this in mind that any Director of Sport may question the value of entering national competitions that require multiple midweek fixtures, especially if an appropriate level of challenge isn't on offer. It is also worth considering the impact of representative sport outside of the school setting on their total playing volume.
Challenges
Many will be reading this thinking that this is all well and good in theory, but inevitably there will never be the perfect list that accommodates all these factors across all teams. The principles of performance development need to be balanced against the potential to give pupils a varied and unique experience. It is easy to forget how few of them will have ever have the chance to experience floodlit fixtures or playing in front of moderate sized crowds. Similarly, playing against touring sides and giving pupils the cultural experience of welcoming a travelling player into the boarding house or their home.
These factors are easier to take into consideration when building a list for one team. The ultimate challenge across a school is catering just as well for the 1st XV as the U15C team. This is especially prevalent in schools with differential quality across year groups. In these situations, we have to rely on colleagues from other schools ensuring the quality of pupil experience and be creative in developing solutions to schools with chronically weak year groups. As Neil pointed out, a fifty-point win or loss is just as useless for either side. If a school is faced with being at the winning end of this, staff in charge of sides should be prepped with a number of solutions. These might include moving players to slightly unfamiliar positions, or removing several of the stronger players to manage the delicate balance of appropriate challenge.
Overall, the progressive Director of Sport needs to ask themselves the reason behind a fixture as part of the puzzle of the whole fixture programme across a school. Does the list fulfil the criteria of an appropriate developmental challenge, giving pupils life experiences they wouldn’t have otherwise had and not increasing the risk of injury or burnout? Quality fixture lists look different in every school environment, it is not the composition that matters, but rather the outcome in quality of experience.
Jamie Taylor is the Director of Rugby at Denstone College