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Forum Newbie
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I coach an under 10s rugby team that win a lot of games and has very talented backs. The thing letting our team down is our forwards at ruck situations. They all know what to do at a ruck as they show it in training but lack something on the pitch  I do not know if it is self belief, confidence, lack of desire or something else. I just wish I could get the forwards to do it on the pitch. Any ideas? Thanks in advance 
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Supreme Being
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think this was coevered recently in an earlier thread - check back ... if not it must have been on the rfu website forums... www.rfu.com, then click on forums in the red-line menus.
didds
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I can't seem to find the thread you are talking about here or on rfu's site. Are you thinking of this one: Playing with an immobile pack?
Can you remember what was said? Can you summarise?
Thanks
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Junior Member
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| I dont know what was said previously, but i do sympathise with your problem, it sounds just like our lads until a few months ago. I coach U11's but we had that problem from U9's when we first started contact, I tried any number of different approaches - whole part whole, (i.e. intervening in training matches), skill sessions, lots of different games - touch and ruck etc... and I found that sadly the answer really is to persist with emphasising and re-inforcing what you want the players to do, keep checking that they are confident in their technique and have good safe body positions and ensure that you are consistent with them. I also found that whilst this to my mind is a core skill for all players and positions, it can help to work with the forwards as a group on their own too - i guess sometimes these things just click too - but the above is paying off for us now.
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Supreme Being
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| I agree with the previous poster ... we never found a silver bullet for this, and we have practiced rucking (both forwards and backs, separately and together) over and over until I was heartily sick of it, so the players must have been too... It does pay off in the end and like anything else, once they realise they can do it, they will do it more, and better. It is still something we come back to over and over again, and I find against a weaker team they get lazy, only to be horribly exposed at the next game. Memories like goldfish some of them! Cheers Ferret
Cheers - Ferret
U16s Backs Coach "There is a forgotten, nay almost forbidden word, which means more to me than any other. That word is England" (Sir Winston Churchill)
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Supreme Being
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Number7 (01/04/2009)
I can't seem to find the thread you are talking about here or on rfu's site. Are you thinking of this one: Playing with an immobile pack?
Can you remember what was said? Can you summarise?
Thanks
there's this from the rfu forums which was the scenario I devised, but Dan would be able to supply a copy of the newsletters where my tweaked game play idea was included, and then built on (in more detail than in the thread above) I am sure :-)
http://www.community-rugby.com/communityrugby/index.cfm?fuseaction=For.showthread&threadid=10472
The thread I was thinking of was "Need scrum half to assert himself" ... as my suggestion has a secondary benefit in this regard.
didds
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| We had the same problem. We tried every rucking practice I could find. One that worked for my team/both junior/mens was taken from an American Football practice. We hung three tackle bags from a weights bar and got the players to hit these. If they hit too high the bag didn't move out of their way or it hit them backwards (which makes it fun). After the practice, we moved straight into a game conditioned to rucking. We found that the practice did work. It encourages low hits and driving upwards afterwards. A major problem can be the use of the hands at first to push, but soon the players realised that hitting with the shoulder is more effective. We even videoed them and played it back afterwards to help with body positions. As the players improved, we used a heavier tackle bag.
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It seems that this is very common situation does not concern the place where it gambles or it practices. :-) I am trainer of an U12 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Consider that at a maul there are no so many problems, aren’t they? The children go with attitude, beyond how they locate the body to push or other skills. It seems that the like to dispute the ball and push.
Nevertheless they do not do it with that vehemence/confidence in a ruck situation
Perhaps they are made the following question: What is a ruck for?
In our case we explain that a ruck serves to give continuity to the game. For us a ruck is a situation “looked-for” between phases of the game. Between a movement and the following one is a movable situation (can be a ruck or a maul) to “settle down” and launching the second movement of attack.
I believe that if the children see it like a situation where they must recover “a momentarily lost” ball, is like an additional effort, something as well as “my teammate lost the ball and now we must start over again”. :-( It becomes a stressed situation for them. They have to decide what to do... Consider that most of the time they are waiting for the ball. They do not go for it. In general they do not have the "bandwidth" necessary to process that information and to draw a conclusion. :-)
In our case we tried to “drill their mind” they must support the ball carrier and help him so the ball remains on our side to continue with the attack.
At these ages, it is very difficult for them to decide in a contact situation what to do. So we simplify that saying that "in case of contact, go to ground and ruck". So we take the stress out of the situation and the movement is more simple.
On the other hand for us is indistinct who form a ruck. Perhaps the error is hoping that forwards (I was one) are those that go from a side to the other of the field doing rucks and mauls. We understand that all must help and the most logical situation is that those closer to the ball must be there to help.
Now for kronfeld7: I liked your proposal of the tackle bags. The only thing that it will be important to render attention is that they do not use the bags as a swimming pool :-). We used a similar method with a single bag. And if the player possibly falls across of the “tackler”, the ruck is transformed into defensive one.
Very good comments. Greetings from Argentina.
Luis
U12 Coach
Argentina
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Two things worked for us.
The first was a hint off this website - get the forwards who are joining the ruck to hold a tennis ball in each hand. This immediately gets rid of the temptation to push with their hands; gets them to get their shoulder right in and bind with their arms; and shows them that it doesn't hurt, an important consideration with ten-year-olds!
Another thing we do to develop this is to get the forward entering the ruck to touch the ground with one or other tennis ball just before he enters the ruck - gets him low, and driving in and up. It seems to work because he very quickly understands that as he can't really push with his hands/arms, he HAS to push with something else - and of course that's his legs, so this gets his leg drive working as well.
Finally, we put duct tape on the rucking pad to show them the height we want them to hit at. Worked a treat.
The tough bit is convincing your kit committee to buy two dozen tennis balls and duct tape!
The second thing is a bit more subtle - looking at the language we use with kids. We eventually found that the instruction 'drive over the ball' is far better communicated to kids as 'drive PAST the ball'. Many of them understood 'drive over' as an instruction to drive into a ruck then stop when they were above the ball ('over' the ball).
We often find that a change of language is all that's needed to make things much clearer to children. It's the adults that need to make the adjustment and that's often very difficult if you've been using the same language for many years, but if you can try to put yourself in the youngster's shoes for a minute and try to 'hear' the instruction as he is hearing it, it can pay big dividends.
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Supreme Being
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Keepsmiling (14/09/2009)
The tough bit is convincing your kit committee to buy two dozen tennis balls and duct tape!
OR...
*ask a local tennis club if they have any dead/non bouncy balls they are going to throw away
*get the kids to bring old pairs of socks to hold instead
*get the pad holders to HUG the ruck pads - this will create an automatic height limit somewhere below the chest region (or they hit bony arms - and don;t worry they won't). By using players and NOT adults this will create a decent working height.
didds
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