If you are able to train, then you will be aiming to improve your players’ skills and tactical appreciation around specific areas of the game.
If you are in lockdown, it’s a chance to hone your session planning in readiness for your return.
In this planning for post-lockdown training, we are going to look at breaking the defensive line. Specifically, the best body shapes, lines of running, handling and support roles.
To enhance learning, you are better off focusing on an “arc” of learning for a specific area. This means spreading out the training over a number of weeks, rather than dedicating one session to this.
Here’s a four-week plan for busting the line and supporting, but you can split this up into more sections if you want.
Objective: Develop awareness of how to break the line and how to support the line break
Week one: Body shapes to get to the edge of defenders and beyond.
Week two: Stepping, fending and offloading through the tackle.
Week three: Supporting the line break.
Week four: Tactical plays to make a break.
Let’s say you dedicate 15 minutes each week to the activities and assuming you have warmed up before the start of contact, you could use a mix of games and drills.
Each session may include all of the skills or tactic from all of the weeks. However, each week focuses on the specific skill/tactic, the reasons why there are important and how the players could improve their own contributions.
The mix depends on the skills of your players. Here are four ideas to help.
Develop how the support player tracks the ball carrier so he can be ready to take a pass or help the ball carrier should he be tackled. Reading the movements of the ball carrier means the support player can find themselves in the best positions to receive the next pass. MORE
Bring in the player from behind the attacking line to split the defence. Use this activity to develop the tactic and then put it into more game-like situations. MORE
The best players use footwork before the tackle. But if they have to go through close contact, they lean forward and drive through with short, powerful steps. Replicate these skills with these drills. MORE
Quick ball manipulation allows players to keep the ball free in contact. Then, they can offload it to support players, who are confident they can take a pass from the ball carrier. If the ball carrier half breaks a tackle, he is in a position to offload. Support runners need to run the right lines to support this pass. He also needs to fend off with his inside arm to free up the outside arm.
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Lineout training should be based around getting the basics right first. When Gary Gold was coaching the South African team with Victor Matfield and they were the best lineout in the world, he used to say: "They know where the ball is going, but Victor will always beat them into the air."
But a lineout is not just about the jump/lift. It's also about what happens afterwards. Here are four activities to develop different aspects of this set-piece situation. MORE
There are so many elements to passing, which ones do you concentrate on first and how do you train them?
Here are a bunch of the priority skills you need and then great ways to train them. MORE
The RFU has brought forward plans to reduce the tackle height at age grade rugby to below the armpits.
Talking to experienced school coaches in particular, they don't see much change in the impact on the game as a whole. However, it is an excellent opportunity to reexamine your tackle technique training. MORE
If our players communicated more effectively, then the ball carrier would know when to pass or when to take contact.
Create more opportunities for this to happen by making it matter. The best exercises provide chances for players to see the value in calling for the ball.
Here are four good activities to use. MORE
Did Warren Gatland pick the right players for the British and Irish Lions summer tour to South Africa?
His team of selectors will have been looking at balance and the style that they want to play. They might not pick the best players but more likely combinations that will complement each other. MORE
Against an organised defence, you can use closely packed groups of forwards to dent the line and then attack the recovering, disorganised defence. Often known as pods, this requires organisation, especially around the roles of the players in terms of carrying the ball and supporting that ball carrier.
In its simplest format, after a set-piece like a scrum or lineout, the forwards who were not involved in winning the ball back after the first tackle, realign to take the next pass. This is in the expectation that the backline doesn't penetrate the line the first time. MORE