Stop creating slow ruck ball

There are three elements to producing quick ball: Pre-contact, in contact and post contact. 

Pre-contact: Deals with the ball carrier creating the best possible situation to take contact. They will be using a combination of footwork, body angle and momentum to ensure the tackler or tacklers are less likely to win the tackle contest.

In contact: The ball carrier has to use their body shape and leg drive to continue to win the contest. They will want to present the ball to his team in the best possible way.

Post contact: The support players will need to protect the ball.

We are going to look at the pre-contact element and then using quick ball. The players need to connect the reasons together.

First, we are going to concentrate on pre contact, where you can use some of your bigger ball carriers to take short passes close to the gain line to create quick ball and also the best use of footwork to create what we call “weak shoulder” tackles.

On page 5, Sean Holley, the former Ospreys and Bristol head coach, explains how with the right footwork you can steal more yards.

Then Russell Bolton is going to show us how to exploit “quick ball” with his maximum pace passing exercise on page 6.

Each week, you can add in an element to your training. Next week you could work on “in-contact” with ball presentation and realignment for “exploiting the gaps”.

What is “quick ball”?

At the top level, quick ball comes out of a tackle contest within one to three seconds of the ball carrier’s forward movement stopping. In that time, the defence will have had little chance to reorganise properly, potentially opening up opportunities to be exploited.

About three to four seconds is actually about right at lower levels, because even if defences are poor at being organised (inexperience or fitness), it is probably the case that the attack is not ready as quickly either.