Rugby ATL Releases Second Video of ‘The RATL Roundup’ Live Series

On May 11th, 2020, we here in Atlanta’s premier rugby team released the second episode of our new live series ‘The RATL Roundup,’ part of our set of online video programs intended to share news headlines, personal stories, and other rugby-related items with our fans. In this episode filmed on Monther’s day, Vice President Kevin McCorry chaired a conversation with Forwards/Defense Coach Blake Bradford, as Blake, an exemplary family man, spoke first and foremost about the Mother’s that made a difference in his life, his own mom and his wife, Cara. As a man of many hats, Blake talked about his family life, his role as an adjunct professor, an academic advisor, as the head coach of Life’s Men’s club rugby team, and his work here at Rugby ATL, before he talked about the attention, time management, and motivation for mentoring required to balance his commitments.

The conversation then advanced to Blake’s coaching career here in the 404. As a part of eight National Championships combined between three at the collegiate level and five at the senior men’s level, Blake shared his story, working with former Life coach Scott Lawrence, as a player and a coach, and talked about how crucial upholding core values are, and how that discipline will lead to inevitable success.

As Blake began to talk about the core skills and set-piece, the interactive action kicked off, and a few clips were diagnosed, on individual skills and body profiles in the set-piece, on modified group work around the scrum, before progressing into full scrummaging. Blake put the same attention to detail into his lineout analysis, from individual release drills for the throw by the hooker, to working with a lifting pod and throwing to a jumper, to the final product, executing the lineouts that will be on our menu for the week.

In the spirit of developing people, Kevin and Blake took the time at the end of the video to respond to your questions and comments from the live stream. If you are passionate about growing your game as a forward, looking for drills to integrate into your coaching during quarantine, or just interested in following along on our ‘RATL Roundup’ series, feel free to watch our video on YouTube, give it a like, and subscribe for more content.