Rugby: Clear, Tackle, Hands Circuit.

Sausage  3+  Ball  Players stand 3m away from ball and sausage.  Players line up opposite side of a laying sausage with ball placed infront of it.  Coach blows whist - its a race for the defender to jackal the ball and the attacker to clear him out the way. 

Correct way of going down with the ball in a tackle. Person being tackled should 'twist' their body so that they land on their back.

The aim of the drill is to develop attacking ability 1v1, with a supporting attacker to seal the ball after the tackle is complete. 

This is the third exercise in a series of three that can be put together to form a contact conditioning circuit. The circuit can be sets of 30 seconds of hard work followed by 30 seconds of rest. Swap in this circuit for your usual fitness routine to give the players something a bit more interesting and transferable to a game.  Alternatively, this would be a great exercise to include as part of a warm up. Players work in pairs, one player holds a tackle bag behind a tackle sausage. The other player makes a low tackle on the sausage and then drives through, clearing out the player holding the tackle bag. This player then goes to ground and gets back up to complete another repetition in the other direction. It is the job of the player holding the tackle bag to lift up the tackle sausage after each repetition. This drill will increase players overall fitness levels while being very relevant to game situations.  0.21 - Why is this important for players?

Groups 6+  Cones. Balls 1. Warm up - Non Contact. Players start on the corner of a square grid. They then in turn run to meet in the middle of the square. The Attacker side steps, while defender tries to get a shoulders on contact on the attacker.  2. Contact introduced - Attakcing Player Focus.  Attacking player after being tackled must land on top of the ball. Then must release the ball, then fire up as quickly as possible to re-gather the ball and keep running.  3. Focus on the defender.  After making a good tackle, with focus on body height, squeeze and foot in close, the defender must return to feet as quiclkly as possible to compete for the ball again.   

One group starts with the ball. Player with the ball forwards towards the player with the pad. The player hits pad with their right shoulder and ?pops? the ball off to the 1st player in the other group, who is running to receive the ball. The next player hits pad with their left shoulder and ?pops? the ball off to the next player form the other group, who is running to receive the ball. Drill continues until all players have carried out the drill from both sides.

Brief your players, but keep it brief! In each grid there will not be two channels. In each of the two channels there are two players with a tackle bag and two players binding with their back to the runner. The players binding will be leaning/driving against a tackle shield (similar to how they would be during a maul). The shield will provide support and resistance just before and during the runners hit. The first player starts and runs to the player with the tackle bag and makes a tackle before moving on. After the 2nd tackle they runs to bind with the 2 players and drives them across the line, their bind should result in their head between the hips of the two players in front of him and his shoulders in contact with the from two players backsides. The players driving position should be low and the hit proportionate. When the 3 players cross the line, one of the 2 binding players takes over and continues to run up the other channel, with the first running player now binding with the other remaining player and taking up a driving position against the shield. Change players around to ensure that every player has an opportunity to play different roles.

Adding the 'put in' and 'strike' to the 3 person front row.

Bags Balls  2 attackers line up opposite 2 defenders with bosh bags.  The coach delivers a ball into the attackers.  The ball carrier aims to run an overs line - Outsid ehsoulder of first defdner, and attack the second defender. The second attacker looks to leach on/latch on to the ball carrier pushing them through the contact area.  Looking for a quick exstra few yards.   

Bags Balls  2 attackers line up opposite 2 defenders with bosh bags.  The coach delivers a ball into the attackers.  The ball carrier aims to run an overs line - Outsid ehsoulder of first defdner, and attack the second defender. The second attacker looks to leach on/latch on to the ball carrier pushing them through the contact area.  Looking for a quick exstra few yards.   

Players stand in a inner circle and have an outer circle 5m behind them. 2 players in the middle. one player passes the ball to one of the outside players. The other central player runs at the player with the ball rips the ball off the player and presents the ball to the original passer. This player then passes the ball to another player in the circle and the practice repeats it self.

tackle sausage  Place 2 sausages perpendicular from eachother in a T shape.  Have one player line up a couple meters away from the bag.  Conditioning drill, the player does reps of clearing the bag, running back to the line, doing a down up and going again. 

Bags  Min 12+  Ball There is a working group of 4 in the middle of 8 differnt bag holders working in 2's.  The group of 4 must pick and drive into a difffernt group of bags each rep.  The group of 4 work on there contact skills of leg drive and staying on feet, then clear out work.  Work for 1 min then swap.

A coach or scrum half feeds a ball carrier who should be running onto the ball. The ball carrier should run towards the tackle sausage and use footwork and a hand off to move past the tackle sausage towards the first two tackle bags. The player should aim to hit the gap between the two tackle bags and power beyond the contact. Those two players then drop the bags and follow the original runner in support. The ball carrier then hits the bag, goes to ground and looks to lift the ball up to one of his support players.  The next player then hits the last tackle bag, goes to ground and presents the ball. The next support player clears away the bag to secure the ball. This drill works on a number of skills (running onto the ball, hand off, footwork and hitting gaps, communication and support, clearing out a ruck) in continuity which means its more game realistic and trains players to not only perform the individual skills, but also to be thinking about how the skills link together and what their next job is.

Groups of 3  Sausage  Ball 1 player lines up opposite a standing sausage, wrestles it to the floor, landing chest ontop of the bag.  A 2nd play holding a ball puts the ball down on the right side of the sausage as if it was an attacker placing it.  The first play wrestling the sausage, bouncers up and competes for the ball (remeber to release)  The 3rd player once the ball has been placed tries to clear the player competing for the ball.

Key factors: Shoulders above hips. Keep square Chin off chest

The aim of the drill is to develop good techniques to protect the ball and stay in a strong position. 

2 players pair up, site back to back and lock arms together.  The coach tells each player to lean a side.  when the coach blows hs whistle they players wrestle to get there shoulder to the gorund the coach said.  Once one player has won, you must reset and start again.

Hooker lets the scrum half know that he is ready for the ball by tapping his left hand on the props back. Scrum half then puts the ball into the scrum and then the hooker strikes it.