Not all rucks are made the same and neither are the players. Especially in the forwards, the difference in height can mean they need to explore varied techniques. Here’s how…
Tall players (like locks) need to keep on their feet when it comes to driving into low rucks. Props can make use of their size to clear defenders past the ball.
Put three attacking ruckers on their fronts in the middle of one side of the box.
Have two ruck-pad holders in each box, just behind a ruck pad on the ground.
Shout out a number between one and three, plus a colour.
That number of ruckers get to their feet and run over the designated ruck pad before driving away the ruck pads.
As the ruckers get to their feet, indicate with your arm whether you want the pad holders to either just move forward OR lean very low over the ruck pad in front of them.
If they are normal height, the ruckers drive them back and out of the box.
If they are very low, they just clear them back from the pad and stop.
Develop by having three pairs of players scrummaging against each other.
In a box next to them a player feeds an attacker and he’s tackled immediately.
The scrummaging players break and aim to win or secure the ball.
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
