The Best Attacking Options from Lineouts
It's vital you make best use of possession, says Jim Love, head coach of Viadana in Italy.
Catch and drive
Without a clear objective at lineouts, many catch and drive mauls end up with the forwards happy with their progress, but with poor ball for the backs to use. Our main purpose for a catch and drive is to create go forward from which we can develop plays.
For instance, we will run off the maul and use offloads and quick rucks to tie in defenders, to create time and space for our backs to attack. We also use mauls to manipulate field position, such as when we want to create a larger blindside for our next attack.
Setting up the catch and drive has changed over the years. These days sides bring the ball down from the jumper to set up a maul before driving forward.
We use what I call "points mauling". We constantly change our point of attack to make it more difficult for the opposition to defend against our maul.
Key points of a catch and drive maul
- Maul to your objectives.
- Create quick ball after the end of the maul with offloads or mini rucks.
- Set the maul before the drive.
- Attack through the maul by changing the points of attack.
The length of our attacking lineout
We use very few full lineouts for two key reasons:
- They provide easy opportunities for interference.
- The referee cannot easily see what is going on.
We use three, four and five man lineouts, each with the same mauling options I described above. We also attack around the front of the lineout (the front peel) or around the back (back peel).
Plays from the lineout
The lineout lends itself to using "pods" to develop plays. A pod is a designated group of players who take the ball and set up a position on the field.
The group can also support an attack, leading to a line break or a quick ruck ball to exploit a disorganised defence. From shortened lineouts forwards can be set up behind the back line.