Coach the three man wrap

This is a simple but incredibly versatile move which uses easily learned and transferable skills. In junior rugby particularly, very few defences are organised enough, or communicate well enough, to stop it.

There are few overlaps in any form of rugby and even less so in junior rugby. However, the simple "three-man wrap" play does create 2 v 1 situations.

It works on many of the more general skills that your players can transfer into the rest of the game: angles of running, accelerating on to the ball, passing accuracy, and the like.

You should practise the play without defenders at first, perhaps using cones to help work on the running lines.

Rugby coaching tips

  • The ball carrier (attacker 1 in the picture below) takes a couple of steps forward to fix defender 1 before passing.
  • As attacker 2 receives the ball, he changes his angle and attacks the space between defenders 1 and 2.
  • Unless the communication between defenders 1 and 2 is excellent, they will both be sucked in to tackle attacker 2.
  • Attacker 1 runs round behind attacker 2 and receives a short pop pass on his outside shoulder. He then straightens up into the space where defender 2 was.
  • As defender 3 covers across, attacker 3 is free to run at pace onto a pass from attacker 3, to get in behind the defence.

Wrapping around the pass

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