Stop their line break from becoming worse

Develop your defensive tactics to get back into position after a line break. Your defenders need to learn their roles and responsibilities to prevent the attack taking more advantage.

Once the line is broken, if your next line of defence (and often the full back) has made a tackle, your players need to recover quickly to stop the next attack being fatal. This activity will help your players understand where to reset from the next attack.

1. Line up 8 to 10 defenders on the 10m line facing the same amount of attackers on the halfway line.
2. Have a ball carrier in the defensive line facing a full back (15) about 5-10m behind the defensive line.
3. On your go, the ball carrier runs at the full back and is tackled.
4. In the meantime, the rest of the players get back into position for the next phase.
5. The defending team are not allowed to the compete for the ball on the ground, but can send one player over the ball if they want to slow down the next phase.
6. Play either grab or full tackling, and play one more phase of play. Develop by allowing the ball carrier to try to beat the full back, plus have the ball carrier start anywhere along the defensive line.

1. The nearest defender (A) gets in behind the tackle to prevent the offload.
2. The ball carrier gets tackled.

1. The defender (A) who was blocking the offload runs into the line, but not into the guard positions (G).
2. It depends on where he thinks they will attack next.
3. The first two defenders (G) get either side of the tackle to prevent a pick-and-go.

TECHNIQUE

• The first defender behind the tackled player should get in between any possible offload opportunity.
• Reform the defensive line quickly.