Get defenders off balance and less effective by making them commit to one tackling line while attacking another. You can do this by varying your angle of attack.
A tackler is at their strongest when they are “on square” – front-on to the defender and able to exert maximum force in contact. For this reason, you should find ways to drag a defender or a line of defenders “off square”. As soon as a defender begins to favour one side of his body and turn either out or in, he creates a vulnerable shoulder to attack.
The best teams use a combination of “overs” (running away from the pass) and “unders” (running towards the pass) lines to get their opponents to commit one way or the other.
THE DOUBLE UNDERS DECOY LINE
The first objective is to prevent the 12 from moving too far across field towards the point of attack. The unders angles from the attacking backline forces the 12 to stop and square up on them. It is likely that the defending 12 and 13 will be disconnected. The gap has been created (see picture 3 for lines of run).
THE OVERS ATTACKING LINE FROM THE WINGER
If both of your centres are running this line, your winger can arrive through the gap.
THE EXPLOITATION
With the opposition 13 now disconnected from 12, the blindside winger has a chance to inside or outside the 13.
Understand how to create then take advantage of 3 v 2s by isolating and splitting the two defenders. The chaotic starts mean more options and decisions for all the players involved. MORE
Create attacking shape, where forwards understand where they are supposed to run to support the next phase of play. The groups of forwards are called pods and need to work together. MORE
Should an attack be successful at a 2 v 1 every time? At the top level, most of the time you would have thought, yet you would be surprised how often they fail.
Add in another attacker and defender, or even two attackers and one defender, and that ratio of success drops very quickly.
But it is still a golden opportunity to make ground and even score. So, you need to increase the success rate, and you do this by creating as many scenarios as you can. MORE
Get your players in place quickly to attack at pace from the next ruck in this simple realignment activity.
Creating and keeping depth in an attacking line running onto the ball at pace and still have space and time to pass. MORE
Set up this problem for your players to solve and the solution might turn into a play. The extra attacker arrives from behind the front line and looks to attack different gaps.
The hidden third attacker can create space for the ball carrier and front line support player as the defenders might be drawn to potential threats. MORE
