Rugby: Ruck Zone

• 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.

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?

• 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.