Players
Handbook

Introduction

Some of you reading this have known me for years.

We've trained together, played together, traveled together, won games together and lost games together. You've known me as a teammate, a captain or someone involved in running the club. For others, this may be our first season together.

So before we get into how we're going to train and how we're going to play, I want to introduce myself, and for some of you, reintroduce myself.

My name is Taylor Durden. I grew up in Australia and started playing rugby when I was ten years old. Rugby has been part of my life ever since.

I was fortunate to grow up in rugby environments where the standard was high from an early age. Across my playing years in Australia, I represented five premiership-winning clubs, earned selection into the Queensland Reds Development Squad and represented NSW Country. I know what it feels like to win a championship, and after doing it as many times as I did, you start to see the pattern behind it.

Those experiences gave me the chance to play in competitive environments under different coaches, systems and approaches to the game. I got to see that same formula repeat itself, year after year, before I left Australia, and a lot of what I believe about rugby today comes from those years.

I moved to the United States in 2016 and spent four years playing with San Fernando Valley Rugby Club in Southern California before joining Sacramento Rugby Club in 2022.

Since arriving at Sacramento, my role within the club has continued to evolve. I've been a player, captain, assistant coach and member of the club executive. Now I'm taking responsibility for the rugby program as Head Coach.

For many of us, that changes the relationship.

Some of the players I will now coach are people I've stood alongside on Saturdays for the past several years. We've shared a lot of rugby together. We've been teammates first, and now I'm asking you to work with me in a different capacity.

I respect that transition, and I welcome it.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I can give this club and where I can make the greatest contribution. Over time, that answer has become clearer. I want to help develop our players and build a rugby program with structure, consistency and direction.

That's what this booklet is about.

It will explain how we're going to train, how we're going to prepare and how I want us to think about the game. There will be programs, expectations and systems throughout it, but the purpose is simple: I want everyone to understand what we're building and why we're doing it.

And I want to start by giving every one of us the same opportunity.

Reintroduce yourself.

A new season gives us that chance.

I have history with many of you. I know the player you were last season. I've seen your strengths and weaknesses. I've seen some of you play great rugby, and I've seen some of you have days you'd rather forget.

That history gives us a starting point.

What happens from here will be shaped by what we do consistently.

Maybe this is the season you become genuinely fit.
Maybe this is the season you become someone your teammates can rely on every Tuesday and Thursday.
Maybe you find another position, develop another skill or discover a part of your game you didn't know you had.
Maybe you've been around this club for ten years and decide to approach your rugby differently.
Maybe you've just arrived and nobody knows what you're capable of yet.

Good.
Show us.

I get the same opportunity.

You may know me as the guy you played alongside. You may know me as your captain. You may know me from the board or simply as Aussie.

Now you get to know me as your coach.

You'll learn what to expect from me through the way I prepare, communicate and coach. I'll be consistent in what I ask of you, and I'll hold myself to the same standard.

Over time, those standards will become part of how we work together.

This season represents an opportunity for all of us to take a turn in our habits and our process.

Over the coming months, we'll find out what that can do for us individually and what it can do for Sacramento Rugby collectively.

We get to reintroduce ourselves through the way we train, the way we prepare and eventually the way we play.

So allow me to reintroduce myself.

My name is Taylor. You can call me Aussie.
I'm your Head Coach.
And I'm looking forward to meeting you all.

"Next Job" – our north star

This preseason, you're going to get a lot of programs from myself and coaching staff. Strength work, conditioning, skills, practice plans, testing days. All of it matters, and all of it is going to make you a better rugby player.

But if you are going to improve your abilities, rugby also demands that you think.

Every time you're on the field, you're solving problems. Where's the space? Where's the danger? Where's the ball going? Do I take contact or pass? Do I hit this ruck or set myself in the defensive line?

These decisions happen constantly. Some are obvious, others happen so quickly you barely notice you've made them. From the sideline, people see the hits, the speed and the strength. Underneath it all are hundreds of small decisions being made for eighty minutes.

We can train those decisions the same way we train everything else: through repetition and habit.

Mental Habits

When a game gets hard, you fall back on what you've practiced.

We practice tackling so our body knows what to do when someone is running at us. We practice lineouts so fifteen people don't have to work everything out from scratch every time the ball goes into touch. We repeat skills and situations until the response becomes familiar.

The mental side of the game deserves the same attention.

This season, we will build one mental habit above all others:

"Next Job."

You make a tackle. Get back to your feet and into the game.

You get bumped. Get back to your feet and into the game.

You drop the ball, give away a penalty or disagree with a call. The game continues while you're dealing with whatever emotion comes with it.

So find the next job.

It might be getting back into the defensive line. It might be talking to the player beside you. It might be covering the backfield, supporting the ball carrier or getting your hands on the ball again.

The answer changes from moment to moment. The habit stays the same.

Find the next job and do it.

Start Small

I want everyone to experience what deliberately building a habit feels like, so we're going to start with something simple.

Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, fill a water bottle.

Take it with you throughout the day. Work, school, the gym, the car, practice. Drink it, refill it when needed and keep yourself hydrated.

Then repeat it tomorrow.
Keep doing it.

The task itself is easy. Consistency is the challenge.

At first, you might have to remind yourself. After enough mornings, you won't. You'll wake up, fill the bottle and get on with your day.

That simple process teaches us something useful: repeated actions become normal behavior.

Now take that idea onto the rugby field.

A player who repeatedly gets off the ground quickly starts doing it without being told. A player who constantly scans starts seeing opportunities earlier. Communication becomes natural. Reloading becomes immediate. Supporting a teammate becomes expected.

We don't need twenty new habits at once. We build them one at a time and reinforce them until they become part of how we play.

That's how standards are built.

Control Your Process

A rugby game will always contain things outside our control. Injuries happen. Weather changes. Referees make decisions. The ball takes strange bounces. The opposition will sometimes do things we weren't expecting.

Our process gives us something stable inside all of that uncertainty.

Preparation is part of it. Fitness is part of it. Communication, effort and knowing your role are part of it. The more often we repeat those behaviors, the more dependable they become.

Confidence grows from there.

You know you've prepared. You know your role. You know the players around you have prepared as well. When pressure comes, you have something familiar to return to.

You find the next job.

Make It Ours

The real test will come when this language starts belonging to the players.

If your teammate drops the ball, he already knows he dropped it. There's rarely much value in telling him again.

A simple "Next Job" tells him everything he needs in that moment.

Get back with us. We still need you.

The same applies when someone misses a tackle, gets frustrated with the referee or loses concentration after a big moment.

Over time, I want those two words to carry meaning throughout the squad. They should remind us to get back into the present and reconnect with the people around us.

Eventually, we may barely need to say them at all.

We'll see the habit in the response.

Our Standard

We're going to train hard this season. We'll get stronger and fitter. We'll improve our skills and understanding of the game. We'll spend hours practicing the things we believe will make us better rugby players.

Along the way, we'll also pay attention to the small behaviors that decide what kind of team we become.

Anyone can talk about composure when things are going well. Our habits become most valuable when the game gets difficult.

A mistake happens.
Find the next job.

Fatigue sets in late in the game.
Find the next job.

Momentum swings against us.
Find the next job.

The game becomes fast, messy and difficult.
Find the next job.

Then do it.

That's our habit. That's our north star.

"Next Job."

How We Play

Every position in rugby requires something different.

Props will spend time developing skills that wingers will never need. Scrum-halves will work on parts of the game that locks won't. As players, we all have different strengths to develop and different weaknesses to improve.

But there are fundamentals that belong to everyone.

For Sacramento, our rugby foundation will be built on three of them:

Fitness. Defense. Ruck Speed.

Every player who wears our jersey has a responsibility to improve in all three.

We want players with the physical capacity to stay involved in the game.

We want fifteen capable defenders who can work together and apply pressure.

And when we have the ball, every player has a role in creating the speed of possession that allows us to play.

Our positions may change what our individual jobs look like.

These three things give us a common foundation.

If we become exceptional at them across the entire squad, we give ourselves the platform to play the kind of rugby we want to play.

So this is where we start.

We will be the fittest rugby team in our divisions.

We will be the best defensive team in our divisions.

We will have the fastest ruck speed in our divisions.

These are the three areas we are going to build our game around.

Fitness

We want to be the most physically demoralizing team our opponents face.

We want big engines that are still working in the 80th minute. Big bodies that can move, recover and keep moving. Players who can make an effort, get back to their feet and make another one.

Our fitness decides our capacity to enjoy the game.

The fitter we become, the more rugby we can play. We make better decisions because we're not fighting exhaustion. We get into position earlier. We support more often. We defend with greater urgency. We give ourselves more opportunities to use the skills we've spent all season developing.

And we become harder to play against.

We want opposition teams to feel our fitness. If a break is made, they see us all chasing in support. Should they survive one defensive set, they see us ready for another. They should look across late in the game expecting us to slow down and realize we're still coming.

That level of fitness is built first and foremost in pre-season but through micro habits of your own.

Tuesday and Thursday training will provide part of the load. The rest comes from the small habits we carry through the other five days.

Go for a walk. Take an easy jog. Get outside and move. Complete your prescribed training. Stay on top of your recovery. Keep your body active.

A short walk or easy jog in the morning may seem insignificant on its own. The value comes from doing it again tomorrow, and again the day after that. Small efforts accumulate.

Movement also plays a role in recovery. Some days the body needs hard work. Other days it simply needs to move.

That's the habit you will build: do something every day that contributes to your physical capacity.

Stack those small efforts alongside the training program over weeks and months, and your fitness changes.

Then Saturday becomes more enjoyable.

You have more energy to play.
More energy to compete.
More energy to think.
More energy to help the player beside you.

And when the game reaches the point where everyone is tired, we want to be the team that still wants more rugby.

Big engines. Powerful bodies. Eighty minutes of work.

That's the level of fitness we will require.

Defense

Defense will be something this team takes pride in and learn to love.

Good defense requires fifteen players working together. We must communicate, move together, make our tackles, get back to our feet and prepare for the next phase.

The best defense applies pressure. The best defense takes the advantage line first.

One player switching off creates space.

One player failing to communicate creates uncertainty.

One player staying on the ground makes everyone else work harder.

We will learn to love the opportunity to punish our opponents defensively.

Over time, we want teams to understand that playing against Sacramento means hitting a brick wall.

Ruck Speed

When we have the ball, we want to play quickly, beyond relying on our "fast guys".

Our measure starts the moment the ball carrier makes contact.

From there, everything needs urgency. Support blows out the tackler/s as well as anybody who would dare stand too close to our ruck. We aren't waiting for our ball to hit the ground to dictate the terms of our rucks.
When we hit ground, we control our presentation to the halfback and recycle.

We want that process to be lightning fast.

Every second we save gives the defense one less second to recover.

Players are still retreating onside.

The defensive line is still organizing.

Fast ruck ball gives us the chance to attack before those opportunities disappear.
We get the jump or we get the penalty.

So, ruck speed belongs to everyone.

The ball carrier has a job. It isn't fighting for an extra yard, it's trusting your cleaners to blow them out.

The cleaners have a job. It's not waiting for the perfect opportunity to present itself, you blow them out at the earliest possibility.

The scrum-half has a job. It's not arriving to a ruck and then assessing your options. It's dictating the options you want and setting the pace of our recycle.

The players preparing for the next phase have a job. It's not taking a break or staring at the ruck, it's eyes up, scanning and being ready to receive ball.

When everyone does their job quickly, we get to play against a defense that isn't ready for us.

A Final Word

I want to finish by saying thank you.

Thank you to the players who continue to give their time, energy and bodies to this club. Rugby asks a lot of the people who play it, and everything we hope to build this season begins with your willingness to show up and be part of it.

Thank you to our coaches, volunteers, board members, supporters and everyone who contributes behind the scenes. A rugby club only exists because people continue to give something to it.

I also want to acknowledge the wider Sacramento rugby community. The clubs, coaches, players, families, referees, supporters and volunteers across our region all contribute to the game we get to enjoy. We share a responsibility to continue growing rugby here and creating opportunities for more people to be part of it.

And thank you to Sacramento Rugby for giving me the opportunity to lead this program.

I care deeply about this club and the people within it. Taking responsibility for our rugby program is something I am proud to do, and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to its next chapter.

There is a lot of work ahead of us, and I am looking forward to getting started.

See you at training.

Aussie
Head Coach
Sacramento Rugby Football Club