Defensive organisation is a core unit skill. From second phase, players need to understand their defensive roles and, more importantly, work together to pressurise the attacking team. You can use this session and its elements throughout your season to achieve this.

Warm up time: 7-10
Session time: 10-15
Development time: 5-10
Game time: 10-15
Warm down time: 7-10

What to think about

• I have one player who is always out of position in the defensive line. Is there anywhere I can “hide” him? In junior rugby putting the weakest tackler on the wing is the best option. Many sides lack the passing skills to move the ball wide quickly.
• Who should call the line up in defence? From set piece play the best placed player is the inside centre (12). In open play try nominating two “defensive captains”, usually the inside centre (12) and the open side flanker (7). Their role if they are not involved in the breakdown is to organise the defensive line and call it up.

set-up

1. Constantly scan – focus on what is in front of you but look left and right as well.
2. Constantly communicate – talk to the defenders on the left and right of you.
3. Move up together at the pace of the slowest player.

What you get your players to do

Demonstrate what happens if a defender gets out of the defensive line by setting up the examples in the diagram (the dangers of a “dogleg”). Set up four gates, 5 metres apart and 10 metres wide. Split your players into groups of four. They move forward together in a line pausing for a few seconds to realign at each gate. Each time they realign the player at the end takes control and calls “SET, HOLD, UP” so the line can move together. You can touch a ball on the ground to help the trigger to move forward each time.