Agility drill
Mirror Drill
Train genuine reactive agility by making you respond to a real player instead of a set pattern.
- Time
- 12 minutes
- Players
- 2 to 20 players
- Intensity
- High
- Equipment
- Partner, cones
- Space
- 5m x 5m grid
- Positions
- All positions
Setup
Mark a 5m x 5m box with four cones. You and your partner face each other about 2m apart inside the box.
How to run it
- One of you leads and moves freely inside the box - shuffling, cutting, accelerating, stopping and faking.
- The other has to mirror those movements as fast and as closely as possible, reacting to what your partner's body actually does rather than guessing what is coming.
- Watch their hips, not their feet, because the hips give away direction first.
- Go for 10 seconds, then rest and swap roles.
- Do 4 rounds each with 1-2 minutes rest.
Coaching cues
- Watch the hips, not the feet
- Stay in an athletic position the whole time
- React, don't anticipate
Common mistakes
- Guessing and pre-committing, which turns it back into a set pattern
- The leader making movements no rugby player would ever actually make
Related drills
- Run to DaylightTrain reading a defender late and cutting decisively into the gap at full speed.
- 5-0-5 TurnDevelop the 180-degree turn off one foot used chasing kicks and retreating to reload.
- 3-Cone L-DrillCombine hard stops, tight turns and a curved weaving run in one sequence.
- Pro Agility ShuttleTrain repeated hard braking and re-acceleration off both feet over short distances.
- Run and CutBuild the 45-degree cutting step that beats a defender, in the safest possible knee position.
- Accelerate-Decelerate RunwayTrain hard braking, which loads the body more than sprinting and underpins every change of direction.