Support: the hardest principle

Support skills are rarely trained in isolation.

Any passing drill requires some form of support. A chain of passes needs the second and third receiver to adjust their runs, based on not just the original ball carrier, but also the next ball carrier.

That players at all levels still overrun, or find themselves disconnected from, their team-mates in training exercises shows these skills aren’t easily defined. So, we must be more astute in the way we set up our exercises.

The other problem is that support is an essential product of handling or continuity skills. 

We might run a passing exercise focusing on catch and pass, or fixing defenders. But the angles and timing of the supporting players will be of secondary concern. 

Of course, we will ask for more depth or pace onto the ball. Yet, we give the players only some rudimentary ideas on what that might look like, or how to improve it.

Continuity skills, which are about recycling the ball from the contact area, tend to focus on the outcomes, or the processes in the last metre. Again, we do think about the players ’getting there’, but don’t spend enough time on the thinking behind it.

One solution has been to develop patterns and pods. These are pre-ordained running lines and roles, so enough players arrive in support of the ball carrier.

More recently, some coaches have tried to avoid using too much structure, encouraging players to react to what’s in front of them. 

In the 1990s, French coaches liked to think about the ’family’ of the ball, with non-ball carriers making decisions based on their relationship to the ball: Were they in close support or did they need to realign for the next play?

Develop players’ awareness in two ways...

Immediate support

The players think they will be receiving the ball next, or helping to secure the ball should the ball carrier go into contact.

That won’t be just one player – it could be a player either side, and one behind. They will be focused on defenders in a narrow visual arc.

Some coaches have forced this by trying to think of playing in diamond shapes.

Wide support

The players think they will be receiving a pass from the next receiver, or in the next phase.

They will have to look at the opposition across the field, and adjust their depth and width.

In these two practices I’m looking at immediate support – first, at the support skills of the very first receiver, and then at how to be in position to be the next support player.