RICHIE GRAY

Gray has innovated specific technical training equipment to replicate key movement patterns within the techniques that are coached in the contact and collision sports of Rugby Union, Rugby League and American Football. The main purpose of these is to increase the individual’s performance levels, but also to have a major and positive affect on player injury, long-term athlete welfare and longevity of career. 

Gray’s highly effective training aid principles are:

• You must create training aids that make the athlete replicate the key movement patterns that happen within the chosen sport to improve his/her performance.
• The training aid must give the athlete feedback.
• The training aid must challenge the athlete physically and mentally at all times to be accurate in execution. This can be achieved through the specific weight, design and function of the training aid.
• Training aids cannot be seen as an easy option, they must always hold a degree of difficulty related to key movement patterns – remember if it does not challenge you, it won’t change you.
• In many ways you can’t beat “live” practice, but as coaches, we also have a duty of care to our athletes. The training aids can be used to work to a level of fatigue and technical accuracy first before going “live”.
• As a coach, to move your athlete forward, you must be able to coach and perfect the key principles of detailed technique that relate to the specific movements within that sport.

As a result of the time Gray has spent on analysis, testing and prototyping each piece of technical training equipment, he has developed a coaching methodology which incorporates best practise for both the coach and the player. Adopting this approach enables a greater understanding of how to utilise each piece of equipment from within the contact and collision range, and further develops the performance of the athlete through challenging and changing the way coaches coach the areas of contact and collision.

These key coaching points have then been developed into what Gray calls “The Five Fights” – the philosophy behind all the contact and collision techniques that he coaches.

In November 2018, Gray’s Company, GSI Performance, partnered with USA Football to create the Advanced Tackle System, which was launched in Jan 2019, and is being rolled out across the US Youth and Schools sector to develop tackle performance within playing and coaching. In 2021 The “Five Fights” tackle methodology was also adopted by the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) in conjunction with the NFL, to allow coaches across the US to access Gray’s tackle framework, which is now held up as best practice globally.

Gray has now gone on to create the tackle performance training methodology for World Rugby (“Tackle Ready”), which was launched globally in June 2021, and has also developed World Rugby’s (“Breakdown Ready”) coaching methodology which was launched in 2022. Gray has been instrumental in the development of Word Rugby’s breakdown guidelines which were first written in 2021 and were revised in 2024. Currently, Gray sits on Word Rugby‘s high performance coaching panel.

Gray’s current research and development focus is looking into what he calls the “52 Week Athlete” concept. This involves the programming and advancement of maintaining the technical accuracy of players within their respective sports off-season and also has been developing specific technical training aids that can be used within players return-to-perform protocols.

Gray is regarded, through his innovative work with specific training equipment for American Football, Rugby Union and League, as one of the foremost thinkers of coaching methods relating to the tackle, collision and breakdown areas of the game.