If you are a good decision maker, you’ll keep your head up and look at the defence before acting. To develop players capable of making quick decisions, you need to give them plenty of opportunities to practise this technique under pressure.
Here’s a simple exercise to set and improve your players’ ability to play heads up rugby.
Set up a three versus two rugby drill in favour of the attack. The ball always starts with the middle player of the attacking three.
Stand behind the defenders. As the attackers start, hold up a coloured cone. The ball carrier has to shout out the colour of the cone as he is analysing the defence and making his decision about how and where to attack.
As your players improve, you can change cones during the attack, so all the ball carriers have to constantly scan what is in front of them while attacking.
Easier to harder
Some players may find this rugby drill very difficult at first. If so, let them walk through the rugby drill to start with before increasing the pace.
Or, start with a three v one.
Developments
Use the cones to indicate different passes/kicks that have to be used. For example, a yellow cone means only one hand passes, a blue cone means a kick after every pass.
Since the defence doesn’t know the signal, the attackers at least have a chance to surprise the defenders.
Develop your players’ ability to recognise and exploit opportunities to counter-attack from turned over possession. By driving into tackle tubes, the attackers are disorientated momentarily. They then have to recover to play what’s in front of them. MORE
Let's consider planning our technical and tactical awareness to exploit a narrow defence. In other words, if there's an opportunity to attack when the attack has more numbers than the defence. In the simplest terms, that might be a 2 v 1. These sessions consider 3 v 2s and 4 v 3s and how and when to use the miss pass. MORE
Develop running angles and passing at pace, with a try after three passes as the goal. Passing “chains” rarely run in straight lines. A series of passes might have players attacking from different angles. They require different types of pass. MORE
Get players to attack defenders in close or wide situations. They will have to see where to run and change angle sharply at pace to adjust. Players need the confidence to change angles, especially those players who are not used to sprinting and conditioning. MORE
Mix up forwards and backs in attacks from rucks by running a box formation. Have two players at the front and two at the back. The ball carrier has multiple options to pass to when he attacks the line. MORE
Use this activity to put more decision-making pressure on the ball carrier and supporters. Make it a high tempo session with lots of goes, and feedback on the run rather than halting the exercise. MORE