Rugby: Ruck Organisation and press

High tempo defending and handling plan. Improve your rugby players' communication, organisation and line speed for a more solid backline

4 players stand on the corners of a 5x5m grid, and one player in the middle (the piggy).

They play piggy in the middle until the whistle goes.On hearing the whistle:

• The player with ball in hand is pillar aka 1. The rest of the players FOLD in and become 2,3,4 and 5 in the defenesive line.
• Once they are set, they call hold hold and press off the line.

4 blue players must try and defend with shields two gates from the attacking red team.

The ball carrying player must meet the defending players and then go to ground and place the ball. Once this has been done the attacking side must form bind together and ruck the shields out of the way - to 'come through the gate'.

The final red player to come through collects the ball and runs anti-clockwise to the next gate and the next set of defenders to repeat the drill.

The two original defenders must now move to defend the other side of the grid.

Set up 4 grids of about 8-10m by 5m.

3 players start on the first grid, working from one end to the other, covering the 5m distance.

• The aim is to stay in one straight line as they go up, and also keep themselves evenly spaced
• Once they have achieved that, they fall back into the next grid diagonally across and back. Now there should be 6 players on the line, and they all work together to come off the line, as one.

Players continue working like this, until they reach the end of the grid.

Once the coach blows his whistle the line may press off.

Coach controls defence with calls up and back between cones placed 1 - 2 metres apart.

On the call of "LIVE" the defence stays on offside line at base of Ruck (marked by cones). Scrum Half is then free to feed any of 5 attacking runners at any time.

Objective - WIN THE CONTACT.