Space – The Final Frontier
Players who are able to recognise and then exploit space effectively are highly valuable, but rare.
Space is a highly valuable commodity, even more when playing against structured and organised defences. Here is some guidance about how to help players concentrate on finding space.
Scanning
Rugby players need to continually scan for and identify space during a game. Space on the rugby pitch exists:
- Outside defenders.
- Between defenders.
- Behind defenders.
- Around and through contact with defenders.
- Between the ball carrier and the defence.
The most common reason why players don't recognise space is because their focus of concentration is on and around the ball. They follow either the ball visually or physically, or the action around the breakdown.
As coaches, we must continually encourage our players to search for space. As part of this, we can get them to practice particular situations, such as the phases following a set piece. Afterwards, we can ask the players questions such as: "What was the defensive alignment at the ruck?", or "Were there any mismatches to exploit?"
This will help the players to find out whether they identified any space, and then when and where it occurred, as well as raise their awareness of the need to be constantly scanning for space.
Communication
Improved communication leads to players exploiting space better. Too often, however, one player in the team is left to bear the bulk of the responsibility for not only scanning for space, but also deciding on how to use it and then communicating this to the rest of the team. These activities should be the responsibility of all players in the backline, but especially the fly half and centres (numbers 10, 12 and 13).
Bear in mind that communication can be a visual cue as well as verbal instruction, so there's no reason why your team's communication should signal your plans to the opposition.
Moves
Another reason why space is not exploited in rugby is because of an over reliance on set plays or sequences of plays. This leads to players trying to execute moves irrespective of what the defence is doing.
In trying to impose a pattern on play, teams run the risk of forgetting to take into account the wide array of variables that might invalidate the pattern. For an example simply ask yourself how often your carefully rehearsed moves work exactly as intended.
As coaches, do we equip our players to play "heads up rugby"? Or make or adapt their tactical decisions according to what they see in front of them?
My sense is that too often we are over-prescriptive in deciding how, where and when our teams will play.
Practise
I argue for less time to be spent on practising moves, which can often be very complex, and more time to be spent playing small-sided games to get players used to scanning for and then exploiting space.
The games I set up for my players follow these criteria:
- I condition the games to present regularly occurring situations.
- I encourage the players to look for and recognise these situations. This allows them to refine their decision making. I also ask the players for their feedback: "Given your strengths and weaknesses, what are the best way(s) of exploiting this situation?"
- This in turn helps communication – more players will be scanning for the space.
The aim is for each of my players to recognise where the space is, to communicate this fact to their team mates (either verbally or with signals), and then for the players to position themselves to exploit the space.