Silent running rugby drill

Use the following rugby coaching tips and drill to make support players work harder.

As rugby coaches we often tell our players to call for the ball. But here's an experiment to try in your rugby training sessions.

Ask your players to put up their right hand if they know the difference between their left and right. The moment of hesitation by many and the inevitable mistake by a few (always a source of amusement!) will prove to your players that shouting "left" and "right" can be difficult to compute quickly, even in relatively calm circumstances.

Make support players work harder

The concept of "silent support" is to eliminate all calling during your rugby training drills (and I repeat training) to make the support player get into the "pocket" to take the pass or offload. The idea is to make the ball carrier confident of support, whatever happens.

In close quarter rugby this is vital because, like it or not, it is not beyond the wit of opposition players to call for their opponent's ball.

The onus is on the support player to work to be in the right place for the ball carrier, rather than the other way around. Silent support is, therefore, a particularly good solution to the problem of supporters spreading themselves out in a close quarter situation when they need to be deeper and behind the ball carrier.

Silent support should be used first to teach players to run supporting lines and passing awareness, before moving back to the more conventional technique of calling for the ball. Nonetheless, I still suggest that players should not use terms like "left" and "right" when calling for the ball.