Bernard Jackman, formerly head coach at the Dragons in the Pro14, takes an indoor contact session when he was coaching at Grenoble.
The players are working on contact skills and ball presentation. The randomness of the initial contact and the surprise element means the players have to make multiple decisions to win or retain the ball.
QUESTIONS
Does the ball have to be placed back with one or two hands?
How quickly does the ball carrier have to move?
How does the defender stay positive, that means, stay on their feet to challenge for the ball?
Ask these questions to the players – it’s their solutions, not your’s.
An ideal session for all ages who play contact.
DEVELOPMENTS
An attacker follows the defender around, also with their chest on the player. They then compete for the ball once the defender makes their move.
We have plenty of tag resources on this site, and I’m keen to ensure they can easily be upgraded into full sessions. Perhaps they won’t be doing much rucking, but there’s plenty else to learn from tag beginnings. MORE
Ian Diddams reviews the latest law directives around the ruck, and looks at how you might adjust your training sessions to help your players become more effective in this contact area. MORE
Upgrade your good tacklers by making them more aware of the type of tackles which would prevent offloads or create opportunities for turnovers. That will make them defenders not just tacklers. MORE
How far should you go in developing better evasion skills by setting up footwork exercises without defenders? Is it better to let them play and discover? MORE
In essence, I wanted to create defensive games which would force attacking teams to realign with more depth. The rewards were aimed squarely at the defence. If they were successful, they would either gain the ball, or in the case of the overloaded game (where there were more attackers than defenders), they would move over into the attacking team. MORE
