If you are able to train, then you will be aiming to improve your players’ skills and tactical appreciation around specific areas of the game.
If you are in lockdown, it’s a chance to hone your session planning in readiness for your return.
To enhance learning, you are better off focusing on an “arc” of learning for a specific area. This means spreading out the training over a number of weeks, rather than dedicating one session to this.
Here’s a four-week plan for quick ball rucks, but you can split this up into more sections if you want.
Objective: Apply pressure on the defence by recycling the ball from the ruck as quickly as possible.
Week one: Ball placement
Week two: Body positions into the ruck (height)
Week three: Body positions into the ruck (drive)
Week four: Speed to the ruck
Let’s say you dedicate 15 minutes each week to the activities and assuming you have warmed up before the start of contact, you could use a mix of games and drills.
Each session may include all of the skills from all of the weeks. However, each week focuses on the specific skill, the reasons why it is important and how the players could improve their own contributions.
The mix depends on the skills of your players. Here are four ideas to help.
First time for rucks, or even the second season of rucking? Then use this session to get your players thinking and then playing contact in the right way. MORE
Making quick, accurate decisions at the ruck will help create quick ball. The role of the first supporter at the ruck is based almost entirely on the threat of the nearest defender. Here is how I define the different options and ways to coach those options more effectively. MORE
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… MORE
Simple to set up, these activities work on improving individual rucking and rucking as a group. There are no bags, just bodies to drive out from the tackle contest. It challenges players to find rucking solution but with a low body position. MORE
The maul is a dynamic contact situation which occurs mostly from lineouts. There are lots of “coach” theories on how to set up and drive forward from a maul, some of which you might use. Now add the science to help you work out what works best for you. MORE
Lineout training should be based around getting the basics right first. When Gary Gold was coaching the South African team with Victor Matfield and they were the best lineout in the world, he used to say: "They know where the ball is going, but Victor will always beat them into the air."
But a lineout is not just about the jump/lift. It's also about what happens afterwards. Here are four activities to develop different aspects of this set-piece situation. MORE
There are so many elements to passing, which ones do you concentrate on first and how do you train them?
Here are a bunch of the priority skills you need and then great ways to train them. MORE
Use this series of exercises to build up simple skills for rucking. It starts with low impact techniques before upping the level of contact in a breakdown contest.
Contact needs careful management. Skills should be honed before they are put into bone-on-bone situations. MORE
Plan for decision-making at rucks. First three sessions for technical, then a four-week planner and then four specific decision-making ruck attack sessions. MORE
Even when your players run predictable lines, there are still going to be occasions when they need to support the tackled player when they least expect it. This session works on this part of the game. If the ball carrier is momentarily isolated, support players need to react quickly to secure the ball.
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