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Home » Better Rugby Coaching » The Huddle » 100 Q&A: How do we encourage more...

100 Q&A: How do we encourage more... Expand / Collapse
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Posted 06/11/2008 16:21:50


Supreme Being

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How do we encourage more communication?

1. Explain what you mean by communication to the players or even what they mean. A better understanding might lead to more use.

2. Play "no ball" touch rugby. The imaginary ball can only be passed by the receiver shouting the name of the passer and the passer shouting the name of the receiver. All passes have to be backwards. Possession is turned over when the ball carrier is touched.

3. Blindfold a player. You hand him balls and he passes them to players running onto the ball.

4. Play silent rugby. Players learn how to use non-verbal communication.

5. Play "trigger" rugby. Design four or five trigger words that the ball carrier must respond to. If he makes a wrong choice then the ball is turned over. He can not pass the ball or form a ruck unless he told to do so. You can start at walking pace (but with tackling).

6. Cut down the communication language to about six phrases. "Left, right, long, short, go ground, 9 ball" for instance.

7. Repeat the upsides of communication every session and ensure the players know it should be specific.

Post #1472
Posted 06/11/2008 20:12:22
Forum Guru

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I like option 5 the best in that I try to instil in players that is not the ball carriers responsibility to find someone to pass to - they have enough responsibilities as it is such as ball protection

It is therefore the responsibility of the support player(s) to get themselves in a position to receive the ball and communicate this to the ball carrier.

If the ball carrier does not receive a call of some kind then their responsibility is to keep moving forward and take the contact if necessary as opposed to slowing down and looking for someone pass to

Forcing the support players to do this means they start to take responsibility for creating options for the ball carrier and communicating this to them

At the top level you often see players pass the ball without appearing to look where they are passing first but it still goes to the hands of a support player

As time progresses the ball carrier will be able to sense where the options should be due to repetition in practice but the call from a support player is still essential

With trigger phrases I believe you have to develop ones unique to your own team/club - this is to avoid sneaky opposition players from making calls and tricking the ball carrier - something I have seen a fair bit in Australia

For example in Argentina a simple example was for Left and Right which could be applied to passing, ruck distribution for the backs etc and we used Rojo (red) and azul (blue) - red was left and blue was right as in politics

If you are to introduce a policy such as this I recommend doing it from the start of pre season so it has time to sink in as opposed to during a season when it can be harder for the players to take on board and accept

A way to practice this for passing in with open support - single defender with ball carrier and 2 support players - support player gives a direction call eg red as the ball carrier is a couple of metres from the defender then a second call of now when he wants the pass

The ball carrier must look straight forward at all times and provide a pop pass on the now call in the designated direction without looking

This not only provides for communication and confidence of the ball carrier in the support player but it also assists in teaching the support player the correct distance from contact the call should be given and timing their acceleration from depth

Once they start to get the hang of it you can eliminate the second call if you wish and just rely on the direction call but you also have the option of adding a distance based call to distinguish between say a pop v a short v a long pass

The key to is all though is the timing of the call as support players will tend to expect miracles of the ball carrier by giving the call either too late when the ball carrier simply does not have the time to process the call and correctly position himself and the ball and give the pass prior to contact or the call coming too early thereby empowering the defender to change attackers and the support player to get man and ball

Hope this helps
Angus
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