He helped get them fit enough to be world champions, now Craig Twentyman is relishing the next phase for rugby's Black Ferns
The Black Ferns World Cup win last year was as much a rugby miracle as it was a fitness miracle. Meet Craig Twentyman - the Kiwi strength and fitness coach who helped condition the Black Ferns to play fast, with many methods learned across the Tasman.
In 2013, Twentyman was instrumental in the creation and delivery of the first centralised, fulltime, professional women’s rugby sevens training programme in Australia. The strength and conditioning coach helped the Aussies win the inaugural Olympic sevens gold medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
By 2019, he’d jumped ship to the Wallabies, a part of Michael Cheika’s staff at the World Cup.
The Hawkes Bay native always had an eye on home, but even when he tried to leave Australia, he couldn’t.
A meeting with Stephen Kearney resulted in work with the Warriors. During the 2020 NRL season, the Warriors were forced to isolate in a Covid bubble in Australia. After two coaches and a mere eight wins from 24 matches, Twentyman was even more determined to return to New Zealand.
An opening emerged with New Zealand Rugby. Twentyman joined the Black Ferns in late 2021, but they were in worse condition than the Warriors.
A disastrous Northern Tour saw record losses to England and France and a public falling out between players and coaches. Did he consider crossing the Tasman again?
“The Northern Tour was terrible from a results point of view, but it’s important to look at it in context,” Twentyman says.
“It was poorly resourced with some ladies having only played two club games the whole year, contrasted with the professional set-ups in England and France. Except for one of two staff, the rest of us were part-time, battling through Covid and full time jobs. The girls were lambs to the slaughter. It was hard to take because of the proud legacy of the Black Ferns.”
Coach Glenn Moore resigned and in came Black Ferns director of rugby Wayne Smith, who was keen to implement a new strategy: 'True to the New Zealand way', ‘Number 8 wire,’ ‘Innovation,’ ‘Disrupt the opposition,’ ‘All-out attack.' were among the mantras.
A fast, skillful, intuitive, ambitious and unorthodox approach was the only way to topple Northern Hemisphere might.
Trouble was, the Black Ferns were seriously unfit.
“The first thing we did was a gap analysis to see where the squad was at physically, technically, and tactically. Then we asked where they needed to be,” Twentyman says
“The lack of time proved to be a blessing in disguise. It forced us to zero-in on the absolute necessities. We knew we weren’t going to achieve world class standards in conventional fitness metrics in the time we had, but we had to be fit for purpose.
"Getting the tight five group fit for the game we wanted to play for 80 minutes was going to be tough, so we prepared some players for high tempo 40 to 50 minute bursts. We joked about having a ‘bomb’ squad like the Springboks.
“We had to be mindful of how much high tempo training the players could tolerate. Yes, it was intense, but we couldn’t be pedal-to-the-metal all the time. Recovery and sleep before afternoon trainings were very important.”
GPS data proved vital in understanding what games look like in different phases. How does the hardest 30-second period compare with a block of 20-minutes of work? Breaking down specific fitness demands within a game, translating those demands into training scenarios and devising desired targets to reach optimum performance in key moments was a focus rather than impressive scores in the gym.
“Our key training session was on a Thursday, and we’d over-distort different game moments demanding skills be executed at a higher speed than what they would be in an actual game. Combined with longer recovery periods, we found the girls were soon able to execute better and better, quicker and quicker. This is not dissimilar to sprint training,” Twentyman explains.
“We mixed Thursday sessions up. Sometimes we’d train a period where the ball was in play 75 percent of the time, an embellishment of reality. And then we’d concentrate on specific skills like transition from defence to attack, catch-pass or line speed.”
Perhaps the most important factor in the Black Ferns' renewed fitness vigour was what Smith calls BIGGA - that is, "Back in the game, go again'. Keeping the game moving rapidly requires the athlete to be present and, on their feet, all the time.
“Getting up quick is a dynamic movement best achieved with technicalities around leading up with the hips rather than relying solely on upper body strength. We really focused on training the techniques and increasing upper body strength and repeatability,” Twentyman explains.
“If you’re on the ground you're invariably absent from the game. Taking that little rest after a tackle means holes appear in the defensive line. If you’re on your feet with strong body language, you might be buggered, but the opposition doesn’t necessarily know that.”
In 2011, when the All Blacks won the World Cup, BIGGA was vital to their success.
Wayne Smith reflected: “In 2011, we were typically 40 percent quick-off-the-ground, that is back to our feet in under three seconds. In the final we were 64 percent off-the-ground which was the best we’d ever seen and miles better than anyone else. Now you’d use 80 percent as a yardstick. That’s how data can change the game.”
The dōjō is another Smith innovation. What did the Black Ferns' dōjō look like for Twentyman?
“It was really effective because it separated normal contact training with more specific types of contact," he says. "The padded flooring removed some of the harshness and allowed us to focus on technical aspects and repeat more often. We could mix things up, one-on-one, three-on-two, what do you do before, during and after contact? What is the role of the support player? We were always careful to make these sessions as transferable to the game as possible.”
After a sluggish start in the opening match of the World Cup against Australia, the Black Ferns found their groove with three consecutive 50-point wins. With easy wins, how were bad habits avoided?
“I was really impressed with the girls' concentration and willingness to learn," Twentyman says. "Women tend to ask more questions than men and they’re often very specific. That makes you a better coach.
"You must justify things and think more about the purpose of your methodology. If they understand entirely what you’re trying to achieve, you’ll get real buy-in. This was true of the Australian Sevens too.”
Twentyman was most anxious during the World Cup semifinal. The opening 20 minutes against France, who led 10-0, was the highest tempo the Black Ferns were exposed to in the tournament but removing the grind from daily routine eventually bore fruit.
What does a typical day look like for Twentyman? "I’m up early and like to train myself before breakfast. I’m not one of those blokes who stands there and shouts at people running around for no good purpose. There are always discussions about individual athletics and addressing what their needs are, juxtaposed besides the team.
"We’ll set up for a training session, deliver that session, debrief and do it all again in the afternoon.”
After Havelock North High School, Twentyman completed a physical education degree at Otago University. He was taken by the high octane approach of Otago rugby teams in the mid to late 90s. All Blacks Jeff Wilson, Marc Ellis and John Timu were guaranteed excitement.
Twentyman moved to Sydney in 2002, and completed his Masters in PE at Sydney University in 2006. After long, and often voluntary, stints with Australian rugby clubs, he eventually broke into the Australian system. Australian Sevens coach Tim Walsh and Dean Benton - an athletics, union, and league performance coach - were key mentors.
He’s a disciple of Tactical Periodisation (TP) a conceptual framework developed by Professor Vitór Frade from the University of Porto, that was initially designed for soccer training and popularised by high-profile coaches like José Mourinho. TP has been adopted by other sports like rugby and tennis.
The premise of the original Tactical Periodisation model is that soccer should be trained with respect to its logical structure of four game ‘moments’: offensive organisation, defensive organisation, transition from defence to attack, and transition from attack to defence.
One of the key principles is that the tactical, technical, physical and physiological components are never trained in isolation and are always integrated to the training of at least one of the four game moments.
The Black Ferns' next game moment is on July 29 when they travel to Brisbane to play Australia in the first test of the Laurie O’Reilly Trophy series. It will be their first international in 229 days since winning the World Cup final against England at Eden Park on November 12, 2022.
Twentyman is looking forward to working with a new coaching staff and playing group. (The new coaches will have the mentoring of one Wayne Smith, who this week was appointed to a new role by NZR helping both Black Ferns' Allan Bunting and All Blacks coach Scott Robertson.)
“It’s an exciting time to be involved in women’s rugby," he says. "The bar has been lifted so that creates pressure but also opportunity. The pathways are getting stronger and younger athletes are slowly learning what being an everyday professional athlete really looks like.”
