Ontario Rugby Coaches
With our rugby seasons well underway, I know our rugby coaches are busy with planning, training sessions, and (of course!) matches, so I'll keep this newsletter preamble quite brief.
As our outdoor season is now more than two months in, the shift in focus from coaching certification to coaching development has begun. Coaching development sessions have been held in Ajax and Ottawa, and have been very successful, with dozens of club and high school coaches in attendance. Stay tuned - more sessions are being planned for other areas of the province!
Two quick notes to share with you:
1. Rugby Development Intern Mike Jorgensen (
mjorgensen@rugbyontario.com) will be reaching out to all clubs over the coming weeks, as he seeks to develop a comprehensive club coaching database.
2. A reminder that all coaches in Ontario - from provincial down to grassroots - must visit the
World Rugby Passport website and complete the World Rugby - Rugby Ready Program, the
Concussion Management for the General Public interactive learning module, and if you are so daring (!), we recommend you complete the Laws of the Game Examinations.
As usual, if any coaches have any questions or comments about our coaching development program, don't hesitate to contact me at
gwilliams@rugbyontario.com.
Yours in Rugby,
Greg Haley-Williams
Rugby Development Manager
Rugby Ontario
Rugby Canada Player Welfare Memo
May 29, 2015
Via Rugby Canada Manager of Match Official Development Nathan Abdelnour.
Concussion Protocol for ALL Domestic Competition in Canada
Rugby Canada’s position in regards to concussion management is to strictly adhere to World Rugby Concussion Management. The basic points are listed below:
Recognize and Remove
- Any athlete with a
suspected concussion should be I
MMEDIATELY REMOVED FROM PLAY, using appropriate emergency management procedures.
- Once safely removed from play, the injured player must not be returned to activity that day and until they are assessed medically.
- If there is a medically trained practitioner at the match as part of a team medical staff, or a match doctor, the decision to remove a player may be deferred to them.
- HOWEVER, the medically trained practitioner will need to make the decision to leave a player on or remove them much like they do with any other injury. There is no substitution allowed to temporarily rest a player suspected of having a concussion.
- The referee may at any time order a player off the field and replaced if they deem that player to be suspected of a concussion, even if this is contrary to the advice by the medically trained practitioner.
*** Please note that a medically trained practitioner refers to a team or club doctor, athletic therapist, or pitch-side medical staff. They are all encouraged to take the online concussion management modules at the World Rugby site listed below.
Graduated Return to Play
- A minimum complete rest period of 24 hours is recommended for adults but a longer "complete rest period" is recommended in children and adolescents.
- Rest from playing or contact training is recommended for a minimum of 2 weeks following cessation of symptoms in children and adolescents.
- A Graduated Return to Play (GRTP) must be completed:
- For ALL players diagnosed with a concussion.
- For ALL players even suspected of having concussion during a game or training at which there is no appropriately qualified person present.
Contrary to belief, there is no “concussion bin” or any form of replacement or substitution for any player
suspected of having a concussion –
the Head Injury Assessment Protocol is only to be conducted at the international level of the game by World Rugby trained medical practitioners. As soon as any domestic player is suspected of having a concussion, they are to be removed from the game and all competition that day and are only to return to play after following the Graduated Return to Play Protocol.
For more information, please see the World Rugby site on concussion:
http://playerwelfare.worldrugby.org/concussion
To view the complete memo, please visit our
Coaching Forms, Links, and Resources page.
Rugby Canada to Host Inaugural National Rugby Conference in Mississauga, Ont.
Rugby Canada will hold its inaugural National Rugby Conference (NRC) in January 2016 in Mississauga, Ontario, just west of Toronto.
The conference will run from January 29-31 at the Hilton Meadowvale. Coaches, administrators, and leaders in the Canadian Rugby community will gain insight on specific rugby streams, connect with fellow rugby enthusiasts and get inspired to grow the game in Canada. The top rugby minds from across Canada and abroad will be invited to facilitate group discussions with representatives from across the country.
“We are delighted to be hosting the first annual National Rugby Conference in January 2016," Rugby Canada's General Manager of Rugby Operations and Performance, Jim Dixon, said. "This is a great opportunity for rugby minds in Canada and around the world to come together to continue to grow the game."
Included in the conference will be panel discussions, keynote speakers and technical workshops on topics in coaching, refereeing, administration and other specialties.
Be sure to register today to reserve your spot with rugby enthusiasts from coast-to-coast. For more information, please visit http://www.rugbyconference.ca. We look forward to seeing you there!
Any questions regarding registration for the NRC can be directed to Neil MacDougall at
nmacdougall@rugbycanada.ca.
If you are interested in registering or have any questions regarding sponsorship, exhibiting or advertising, please direct your inquiries to Mike Thorne at
mthorne@rugbycanada.ca.
How much water should you drink? Research is changing what we know about our fluid needs
A thought-provoking article originally posted by the Globe and Mail
As British cyclist Alex Dowsett was preparing last winter for an assault on the one-hour time-trial world record, his sports science team was fretting over the details – like the optimal temperature at the velodrome in Manchester. Warm air lowers air resistance, but risks parching the cyclist, who can’t drink during the race.
Meanwhile, Brock University physiologist Dr. Stephen Cheung, himself an accomplished cyclist and co-author of the book Cutting-Edge Cycling, was poring over the results of his surprising new study. The results showed that losing even three per cent of body mass through dehydration has no discernible effect on cycling performance. He shared the results, which had yet to be published, with Dr. Mikel Zabala, a friend who heads Dowsett’s scientific team.
“He and I were batting around the idea over the winter of just how hot do we want to make the track,” Cheung recalls. “He was obviously worried that Dowsett was going to get really dehydrated. So I shared the data that I had, and perhaps it put his mind at rest.”
Dowsett went on to smash the record by nearly half a kilometre in May, covering 52.937 kilometres in 28 to 29 C. Later that month, Cheung’s study was published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, garnering media attention around the world – and leaving everyone else confused. Hydration, after all, is a modern obsession: We tote water bottles to the gym, strap them to our waists as we run, and sip from them at our desks. By the time we feel thirst, we’re told, it’s already too late. So how could the new results be true?
Cheung’s research is just the latest in a string of studies over the past decade that have upended our understanding of the body’s fluid needs. Instead of striving to replace every drop that you sweat out, it now appears that a little thirst isn’t the end of the world. That doesn’t mean drinking during your workout is a waste of time – but it turns out that how much you need may depend less on the fluid levels in your body than on what’s going on in your head.
The prevailing rule of thumb is that you’re in trouble if you sweat out more than 2 per cent of your body mass, based on U.S. military research preparing soldiers for desert or jungle combat in the Second World War. For a 75-kilogram man, that works out to a loss of 1.5 litres of sweat – a pretty big puddle under the elliptical.
Check out the full article here.
