There are seven key factors for spin passing, but if you had to concentrate on just one, here’s which would make the most difference to your players.
CORE FACTOR
Lead hand and passing hand both finishing pointing towards the intended target.
Spin passing the ball allows the ball to travel further and move quicker through the air.
A variety of different techniques can be applied to the ball to promote spin, but in order to have consistent outcomes of your spin passing, both your hands need to finish pointing towards the intended target. If your target hand, the hand on top of the ball used a guide, doesn’t finish towards the target then the pass will often drop low before the receiver.
With a steady increase of ball-in-play times it is now more important for all players to be able execute spin passes on the move and under pressure. Therefore, a sound technique with hands finishing to the target will increase the consistency and success of passing under pressure.
Below are a couple of activities to put spin passing skills under pressure. Use the key factors as coaching points for the individual working under pressure.
LOW LEVEL
One player is working in the middle of a passing drill.
(A) receives a pop pass from (P) on the move. A defender will put pressure on the passer (A).
Once the ball has been successfully caught the defender can move forward. When he moves forward to pressure the passer, (A) must pass the ball to the catcher (C).
The defender can move backwards to bring the attacker (A) onto him but as soon as he steps forward the pass must be executed.
Force your players to exaggerate the skill, leaving their hands in their fishing position for as long as possible to enable self-analysis.
Players score points for hands finishing to target and for accurate passes to the receiver.
HIGH LEVEL
Player (A) is working on his medium and long range passing under decision-making pressure.
Player (A) must attack square and pass to either of his two receivers at the defensive line.
The defender must pick a space to fill in front of one of the receivers.
The attacker (A) must then see which receiver is in open space and spin pass accurately, with hands finishing towards the target.
Create 3v2 situations in a training context that disrupt the attack and defence enough to make them concentrate on good skills rather than “gaming” the scenario. Gaming the scenario means players manipulating the rules and setup to win the game in a contrived manner rather than using the natural order of rugby. For example, a... MORE
Use parent stations to allow you to run lots of activities with a parent overseeing each activity.
It requires one parent, minimal setup and minimal instructions. Each station runs for two to three minutes before the players move to another station. MORE
One player goads another, then touches the line and races to the other end to avoid being touched by the chaser. It’s a like smaller version of the Bangladeshi game of Kabadd 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