For now, though, I'm very lucky to be able to hike over to wherever these gals are playing and have a SPECTACULAR time:
This weekend we played in Washington, DC
where I got to play three different positions in one game! This wonderful
opportunity led me to gain some game experience in yet another brand new
position for me:
FULLBACK!!!
FULLBACK!!!
It was SO-MUCH-FUN! Of course I was at least 85%
disappointed with my performance in the position (but that number seems to be
pretty stable wherever I'm playing, ha ha) but I'm so pleased with the chance I
had to learn the game of rugby from a whole new view. On that note...SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY FULLBACKS BECAUSE THIS
POSITION IS REALLY FREAKIN' TOUGH. And that doesn't mean all
the other positions are a breeze either, but WOW fullback really has some
challenges thrown into it.
I was happy with the massive amounts of running involved, but it was definitely a strange feeling for me to be hanging back and watching the show. My forward instincts kept making me want to jump up and hit a ruck, but I had to sit with that keen awareness. Sometimes it even made me feel bad to be standing in the back while watching everyone else rumble and tumble through bangers and phases, but I learned pretty quickly that while you're "sitting" back there the gears in your brain are working PRETTY FAST. The amount of field awareness you need is incredible; practicing taking it all in is another great skill that playing fullback helped me develop.
One of my biggest roadblocks in playing fullback came in the times where the spotlight was completely on me to make a tackle or recover a kick. Many times when there was a breakaway that was fully dependent on me as to whether or not it became a tri, I would psych myself up to CRUSH that person....
I was happy with the massive amounts of running involved, but it was definitely a strange feeling for me to be hanging back and watching the show. My forward instincts kept making me want to jump up and hit a ruck, but I had to sit with that keen awareness. Sometimes it even made me feel bad to be standing in the back while watching everyone else rumble and tumble through bangers and phases, but I learned pretty quickly that while you're "sitting" back there the gears in your brain are working PRETTY FAST. The amount of field awareness you need is incredible; practicing taking it all in is another great skill that playing fullback helped me develop.
One of my biggest roadblocks in playing fullback came in the times where the spotlight was completely on me to make a tackle or recover a kick. Many times when there was a breakaway that was fully dependent on me as to whether or not it became a tri, I would psych myself up to CRUSH that person....
................................................aaaand
then end up like this:
One-on-one tackling in the open field is definitely NOT one of my strengths.
This is probably a big mental thing as well, because when thinking on the
difference between hitting people as a forward and at fullback they seem like
two completely different things. While of course there are a lot of different
exterior factors that affect making those tackles, THEY ARE BOTH STILL
TACKLES. PERIOD. If I can make a tackle A-Okay as a forward then I
should be able to translate that right over to fullback no problemo.
I think that when I'm in a forward position, I just completely lay myself
out there full throttle because I know there are tons of other teammates around
me ready to support if I miss the tackle. But at fullback you don't really have
that luxury; I should still be completely laying myself out there for a tackle,
but I get too caught up in attempting to time it correctly. I'm having
difficulty maintaining speed when catching up/running towards someone about to
get on a breakaway and then making the move to tackle them. Obviously if I take
one step off then they're off to the races! A few times I was able to overcome
this when I didn't think as much about it and just plunged right into the
tackle. I would try to anticipate what the next step was that the person was
about to take and then lunge in that direction. Many times this worked out, and
then many other times this left me looking like a damn fool ha ha.
A couple of times I was left with an extreme overload on my own - myself
against 3 or 4 other players. I looked like an idiot when I attempted to
play a zone and cover all of them, but my coach for this team gave me great
advice: no matter what, ALWAYS just go for the person with the
ball. That sounds pretty obvious, but when you tackle the person with the ball
in an offload the majority of the time it can still end up in a tri since 3
other wide open people are there to carry it on. But my coach made a great
point about how if you just go all out for the person with the ball, you can:
a) potentially force a turnover via dropping the ball or
making a bad pass
b) give at least a few more seconds for your teammates to
catch up and stop the overload
and no matter what, you leave an impression on the other team that lets
them know that there won't be any freebies in this game! Any little dent of
hesitation or doubt you can leave in your opponent can be pretty detrimental.
ANOTHER great resource that my coach referred us to is an online course
called RUGBY READY.
I own practically every book, flick, you-name-it about rugby and I have
NEVER heard about this course. You can create a FREE account in order to keep
track of everything you do on the site, participate in FREE guidelines about
everything and anything you may have a question about, and even get a FREE
"certificate of awareness" when you complete it!
Are you seeing the pattern here?
Are you seeing the pattern here?
Everything is FREE.
RULE #76: NO EXCUSES PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION.
I guess that in MANY countries, you actually need to pay a fee in order to
use this site...but luckily the U.S. hasn't caught onto that trend yet so USE
IT WHILE YOU CAN. Gaining rugby intelligence is one of the EASIEST and most
EFFECTIVE ways to improve your rugby game.
