Improve your players’ ball retention in contact with this slightly different whole-part-whole approach.
You can use whole-part-whole by having breakout groups from the main group. The breakout group works on the “part” which is the specific techniques you want them to perform well, under pressure, in the game.
WHOLE
Play 5 v 5 in a narrow but long pitch.
Rucks and mauls may involve only the tackler, ball carrier plus one from each side.
Following a breakdown there is maximum one pass.
Teams advance through recycling to score tries.
Turnover the ball for infringements.
Once the game has played for a few minutes then…
PART
Remove one player from each side to a separate area.
Work with both players on their contact skills, with players taking it in turns in a 3m square to beat their opponent.
Rotate players every couple of minutes, keeping them fresh and the game intensity high.
TECHNIQUES
Body height – attacker’s shoulder at opponent’s hip. (A)
Footwork – step to the side in the final approach step. (B)
Power strides – as contact is about to be made the final stride should be hard, followed by small driving steps.
Ball protection – the ball held to the side away from the defender. (C)
Find out more on how this type of session might function…
My “Find the bib” game is adapted from the game called “Drop-off touch”. It challenges the players to look for mismatches and also create them too. MORE
A fun game which forces players to push their passes hard towards the target, improving their accuracy and pass strength. One group aims to intercept a pass with their own ball (the “skeeter"). This activity encourages hard passes to a target, so will create better passing habits. 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
This is a great game for when you are short of numbers and have a variety of positions at training. Use it to develop catch and pass and also for players that find identifying/exploiting space challenging. The aim of the game is to score as many tries as you can, within a set period of time. MORE
Develop your pick-and-go game against an organised ruck defence. James Forrester introduces this three-player move to create some go-forward momentum. MORE
In the third part of a session, after a warm-up game and then a skill drill, introduce a skill game. The game is still focused on the objective. It gives the players a chance to explore the skill in the context of the game and see why it is relevant. MORE