...well....I'm supposed to be on probation and not playing. If my mother or someone who will snitch to my mother is in your vicinity kindly CLOSE THIS SHIT IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE SHE HAS NO IDEA THAT I'M STILL PLAYING ANYWAYS.
And I get it that clearly tackling people and being pummeled left and right are not exactly activities you should be doing when you don't have health insurance, but running drills? passing? playing touch scrimmages? All of those are about as hazardous as going to the gym, going for a run, walking across the street..........you get it. It's BOGUS.
And telling me I can't play rugby?
Rugby is what gets me through the week, through the day....through ANYTHING. Literally any type of trouble I am faced with, or even any type of accomplishment I have, I can relate it back to rugby. Every time I step onto a rugby field it's just FIREWORKS IN MY LIFE
It makes me sad that I really have to limit and even hide my passion for rugby since I know it will make people in my family angry, annoyed, or bored. Sometimes I honestly feel like when I ramble about rugby with the majority of people in my life (outside of the rugby realm itself, of course) I'm uber excited while I get this blank look in return:
Anyways, I'm SO glad that I made the executive choice on my own to continue playing through my insurance drought because (obviously) I haven't gotten injured and we have been doing some GREAT stuff at practice that I am really benefiting from. I hope that I am able to motivate myself to get my ass on here and write a post (as opposed to getting sucked into the black hole of BUZZFEED) every time we have a practice so I can share with everyone else the great drills and things we learn while also making sure I remember all of this important information. The more you retain all this shit, the more it will display itself on the playing field. Rugby is SUCH a book smart sport, so strategic and intelligent in so many ways.
Over the past few weeks, we have been focusing a lot on defense. We have been practicing defense SO much that anything about attack has been put on the back burner (for the time being). I think this philosophy is SO important for a variety of reasons:
- a breakaway and almost any type of scoring can happen in less than a second
- at the same time, any type of turnover can happen in less than a second...you can suddenly find yourself on attack or [more importantly] defense before you even realized what happened
- if you are able to perform defense well as a team, this type of pressure can make the opposition put their tail between their legs and raise the white flag in a heartbeat....this type of insecurity can be lethal
- mistakes on attack happen literally all the time and are much easier to fix than mistakes on defense; chronic defensive mistakes mean that there are some fundamental issues that cause major road blocks for any team of any skill level
To start off practice, we played a really fun yet practical game called snakes and mongoose (I'm sure there's a variety of names for this game). It was really simple yet taught a lot of great lessons about playing defense.
Easy rules to follow: Set up cones in a grid/box/rectangle that limits the space of play. The defending team's objective is to eliminate all the opposing players via tagging each player with a rugby ball. However, opposition must be tagged with the ball and a defender is not allowed to move when they have possession of the ball. So, this forces the defense to practice a variety of skills:
- Spacing - supporting one another and setting up as a team was extremely important in being able to tag anyone. When defenders ran off to try and cover people on their own, it never worked....even if you were matched up perfectly with an opposing player, you would be passed the ball and watch the opposition run by you while you could only stand there frozen (since you wouldn't be able to move). When defenders set themselves up to trap oppositional players and cut off gaps, then the sparks started to fly.
- Communication - Like every other aspect of rugby, players had to communicate with one another in order to be on the same page. Designating one oppositional player at a time for the defense to focus on tagging was effective. With everyone working towards the same goal, there were many times where it was practically unstoppable. Even telling the other defenders where you are, where the ball is going, etc. are all very important and effective uses of communication.
- Proximity - obviously this is similar/practically identical to spacing, but I'm separating this skill by using it to refer to invading someone's hoop (circle of proximity around them) when going in for a tackle. From the rule that you cannot move once you are holding the ball, you're forced to be in extremely close proximity with an offender in order to be able to tag them. Many times we find ourselves tackling via clotheslines (arms out, body away) or tugging at clothing/hair because we have not entered that area of personal space that allows us to be more in control of the tackle.
GET IN THAT HOOP!
We then moved on to some more practicing with tracking. This skill involves an important set of paces that you need to move at:
FAST-SLOW-FAST
FAST: press forward to take away space, not allow the opposition to gain meters, and put pressure on the attack. Meet the opposition at the middle of the space separating you from them.
SLOW: Once you have quickly made it to the middle and taken away that space, slow up in order to position yourself for a tackle. Although I'm saying "slow up" that's not really what it implies.....it's more as if you're not moving forward but you're keeping your feet active and shuffling in order to be able to change direction at any given moment. When shuffling, you want to line up with the offender so that you are square with their hips (your hips and theirs are literally parallel to each other, so you may not even be necessarily facing straight forward on the field) and you are positioned on their inside shoulder so they cannot quickly step back into open space.
Important mistake I keep making: Due to my defensive basketball shuffling background, I have a terrible tendency to keep my stance wide (it's practically an unconscious movement...I have to constantly tell myself in my head to stay in tighter). But you really want to shuffle with small steps close together because this gives you more availability and freedom to move in any direction. A wide stance forces you to pause for an extra unnecessary second in order to switch movements.
FAST: Once you've entered their hoop and set yourself up for a hit, BOOM! Plow on forward! Cheek(your face)-to-cheek(their buttocks)! It's extremely important to remember to drive so that you are not bulldozered over and so you are more able to make a positive tackle - one that gains meters for the defense and pushes the opposition backwards.
Tracking drills: we set up cones in a grid/box to simulate defending someone who has a touch line (out of bounds) on one side of them. A defender would stand across from an opposing player running with a ball and perform the fast-slow-fast technique before ending with a tag on the runner's hips. This was a pretty small space so the defender was really forced to do this sequence quickly. When defenders were picking up on pressing forward, shuffling, and being aligned on the opposition's inside shoulder, then we progressed to giving runners the option of cutting back/changing direction in order to make sure no defenders cheated/overestimated on defense positioning.
Because as a team we experienced some difficulties here and there with these drills, we did another tracking drill as well to break it down even more. We practiced the fast-slow-fast paces without opposition that just involved running, shuffling, and then quickly picking a direction to move in. It is very important to remember when shuffling to keep your feet/legs in tight so that you are able to change direction and move quicker!
Another defensive drill we did reminded me of something like Mighty Ducks meets foosball. Four different ball carriers lined up behind one another so a line of defense would start out lying on the ground and run up to meet each one in a flat line. Two defensive players started on the ground next to each other and then on the outsides two other defenders started about 5 meters back (and, thus, they look like "flying V" formation from the Mighty Ducks). When the ball carrier in front of them picked up the ball off the ground, all four defenders would fire up off the ground and press towards the ball carrier. A couple of communication skills were practiced through this. First, the two players on the outside had to let the players on the inside know they were in support/coming up to meet them by yelling "I'm here, I'm here!" OR even make it known they weren't with them yet. After the defensive line was all set then it had to be someone's responsibility to call the tackle and burst forward to wrap the ball carrier. In a way, it's like a team version of fast-slow-fast because if the defenders press up together without aligning in a flat line then they turn into THE GAP OUTLET (hah...see what I did there?). After this was completed, the defenders would get back on the ground in the same formation and repeat the same drill with the next ball carrier in line.
FUN FO' DAYZ.
I could go on and on, which I plan to do very very soon since there's great drills galore we've done so far, but I know this post is already about as long as the Torah so I'm cutting myself off here....
...and am probably just going to start another post very soon after this.
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