Teaching and coaching Touch (Rugby) Football through play with purpose

 

The school I did my third year PE BEd placement at in the mid-1980s was big on Touch Football. I remember as an assignment attached with that placement, the school asked me to develop a battery of skills tests for Touch as there wasn't anything like that for Touch Football at the time; and, skills tests were a major form of PE assessment at this time. Move forward a few years, and in the early 1990s a group of boys encouraged me to start a school Rugby program, and through this I  started playing Touch as my football (AFL) playing had come to a stop due to recurring injuries . Turned out, there was a competition not far from where I lived at the time, and started playing to learn a bit more about Rugby as a lot of rugby players were playing Touch over summer to keep fit. I continued to play 'on-and-off' for many years, and Touch became one of the school sports I coached regularly and taught in PE. In this post, I share how I came to teach/coach Touch using the Play with Purpose framework. The PwP framework shifts from drill to skill as the focus to a game-based, athlete/player-centred focus. In this framework, the game is not the reward at the end of a session; the game is central to the learning.

What has been called ‘traditional’ sport teaching/coaching often starts with isolated skill practice using closed drills (e.g., passing in pairs) progressing through a drill sequence before putting players into a game. The Play with Purpose framework flips this. You begin with a modified game that highlights a specific tactical problem, allowing players to understand ‘how’ a skill is a solution to a tactical problem. Here, I use ‘tactic’ to mean the player solution to the problem that is the moment of the game, while strategy is the action logic used to coordinate team thinking about the game.

When applied to teaching/coaching Touch Football, this means:

• Tactical Awareness First: Players start with perception-decision making situations - read space, anticipate defender movements, and coordinate and communicate with team-mates, as a representation of the game is the start of the practice session.
• Modified and Designer Games: You manipulate game conditions/constraints (field size, player numbers, touch rules) to exaggerate specific tactical scenarios, such as creating an overlap or executing a quick roll-ball.

Structuring a Lesson or Session (“The Game Sense Loop”)

A Play with Purpose session for Touch Football follows a distinct, cyclical flow:

Step 1: The Game 1

Start with a small-sided and/or modified game. Initially, keep the player-to-ball ratio low (e.g., 3v3 or 4v4) for maximum active learning time and maximum participation (engaging therefore higher volume of technical and tactical actions per player than if in a full sided game)

Step 2: Debate and Clarification (Developing thinking players lies in the “Power of Asking, Not Telling”)

Pause the game after a few minutes. Instead of lecturing players on what they did wrong, use purposeful questioning to guide their thinking. This builds game literacy and player game sense so they can be independent decision-makers in the game.

Step 3. Return to play to see if players can operate the discussion into game play or

[if necessary] move to an Action Concept Practice

Once players identify the problem (e.g., "We are crowding each other and not passing to the open player"), it may be pertinent to decrease the information load on players to isolate the focus on the specific solution.

• Example: A practice activity focusing on running straight to fix a defender, then passing to a trailing support player (an "overs" or "unders" line).

Step 4: Game 2

Elevate the practice challenge by adding a new game condition/constraint or progression to test player understanding.

• Example: Restart the 4v4 game, or but give bonus points if a try is scored in the corner after a successful draw-and-pass.

OR, now place the tactical challenge in focus in the Game 1 small-sided game into the 6v6 game with or without the new game condition/constraint to test player understanding and action potential.

In the 2016 resource book Play with Purpose: A Game Sense Resource for Rugby, Rugby League and Touch Football I suggest Touch Football can be understood through core tactical concepts which are taught/coached through specific game conditions/constraints. Examples are summarised in the following table:

Tactical Theme	Purposeful Game Design – Conditions/Constraints	Guide Questions to Ask Players
Creating and Invading Space	The Wide/Narrow Field: Play 4v4. Make the field very wide. If defenders spread out, attack the gaps. If they bunch up, attack the edges.	"Where is the defender's biggest blind spot right now?" "How does changing the speed of your run alter the space?"
Manipulating the Defensive Line	The Roll-Ball Sprint: Rule constraint: Once a touch is made, the defender must run back 5 metres before they can defend again, creating a temporary 4 v 3 out-number.	"How can the dummy-half exploit the defender who is back-pedalling?" "Why is a fast roll-ball crucial here?"
Support Play & Continuity	The Trailing Support Game: Tries only count if the scorer receives the ball while running at pace from behind the player who made the previous pass.	"What should you be doing once you pass the ball?" "How does positioning yourself behind the ball-carrier help them?"

 

Using the Play with Purpose framework, your primary tool for game design is the manipulation of game conditions/constraints through exaggeration, elimination, reduction or simplification of task, performer or environmental conditions (rules). If a game isn't achieving the desired tactical focus for player learning, you change the rules of the game to shape the play to engage the planned tactical focus.

Examples of how rules (game conditions/constraints) can be manipulated for purpose:

• To improve defensive communication: Implement a rule requiring the defense fewer players or require them to call out the name of the person they are marking.
• To improve attacking depth: Implement a rule where forward passes result in a turnover (inherent to the game), but reward a try that involves a "wrap around" or "switch" play with double points.
• To improve the "Touch and Roll-Ball" transition: Implement a rule that requires the attack only 3 seconds to initiate the roll-ball, forcing immediate support organisation.

In this chapter click here, Brendan SueSee and I layout a unit plan to teach Touch Football (Rugby) in physical education using Play with Purpose to develop game sense 

Touch Football has developed from a sport rugby players used to 'keep fit' over summer to one of Australia's most popular social-recreational and competitive sports, now played internationally. If you haven't included it in your PE program before, I recommend you 'give it a go'.

Touch Football teaching/coaching resources and readings

Pill, S. (2016). Play with Purpose: A Game Sense Resource for Rugby. ACHPER Publications. Available click here

Pill, S. & SueSee, B. (2025). Touch Football (Rugby): Play with Purpose to Develop Game Sense (Australia). In Game Based Approaches in Physical Education: International Perspectives. Routledge. Available click here

Rankin, J., Pill, S. & Magias, T. (2018). Informing the Coaching Pedagogy of Game Modification in a Game Sense Approach with Affordance Theory. Agora Para La Educacion Fisica y el Deporte, 20(1), 68-89. Available click here

Thanks for stopping by and reading this post. If you would like to connect with me about a project to do with this blog or any of the other ideas that I have blogged about, you can contact me by the email link available here