Scrum-half - honing his pass

Next article to discuss the different types

This week our coaching Guru looks at how a scrum-half can hone his pass.

Number 9s first responsibility is to get the ball to his fly-half. He must do so wasting no time; time, after all, is space and distance both for you and the opponents. That ball must hit the hands of the fly-half; 10 decides at what speed he is going to run into the ball and, thus, how far in front of him he wants it; he also chooses his positioning and his angle of run. The scrum-half cannot err in his direction, length or angle of pass- a huge responsibility. How many tries have you not seen scored as a result of an inaccurate or slow scrum-half pass? The scrum-half's pass must be consistently good.

Too often we coaches leave it to 9 to keep his service up to scratch but it is the task of the coach, surely, to see to it.  Every so often coach should run him through a session.

Put him on the 22 line with his No.10 about 12 metres, or a comfortable distance for him, away from him, also on the line. The No.9 puts the ball in front of his right foot and with his right hand (whichever is the stronger hand) he cups that ball, spinning it off the ground to the fly-half. He must hit him waist high with every attempt before he is allowed to move on. He must be crouched over the ball with his weight on his right foot which is flat on the ground. As he scoops up the ball from the ground, he must throw his left foot out in the direction of his pass - actually, behind the line of his pass - with his toes pointing towards the fly-half. He will not be able to hit the fly-half if he does not follow-through with his right hand his left leg and his trunk towards the receiver. Right arm, left thigh and trunk should all be parallel to the ground. Bring both hands into the pass now making sure that he keeps passing off the ground - you watch how, now, he will tend to pick it up before passing but keep nagging.

Next get him to move into the ball and then roll it for him to move on to - check that his feet are correctly positioned and that his body position is good. A long step on to the left foot will produce a long pass while a shorter one will give a shorter but quicker pass. You do not want him winding-up because that slows his pass down. I always remind my players that a good sprinter will cover 100 metres in somewhere around 10 seconds - so one second's delay is 10 metres of space. It is an exaggeration but it certainly brings the point home: time = space.

The longer the right hand stays in contact with the ball along the line of the pass, the better the pass will be - it gives length to the pass. If his left foot moves forward in front of the line of the pass, he will not be able to rotate his right hip fully. If he stands up on his pass, the pass will move upwards instead of parallel to the ground- as with the left thigh, right arm, torso, head and shoulders must all be low, parallel to the field. It is important that his right shoulder moves right through the pass; as you, the coach, stand in front of him you should be able to see the back of his right shoulder as he completes his pass. If you watch a good scrum-half you will see that his left arm is flung wide to the left  to aid the rotation and give more power to the pass - it is wrong to follow through with both arms in the direction of the pass, only the right arm goes through in that direction. Balance is a must.

Now move on to the weak hand and go through the same process. Another one of my horrible clichés is that rugby is a game of consequences- one apparently small error develops into a horrendous succession of disasters ending up with the ball being put down behind your line - most often not by you. This is very true of a scrum-half pass; anything out of place, a foot, a hand, a shoulder can result in a bad pass which becomes multiplied as the ball moves from man to man. The coach must spot these errors and help no. 9 to sort them out - habits grow easily, good one and bad ones so do not let bad ones develop; nip them in the bud.

Once you have perfected the mechanics of the pass, get the fly-half to stand in his normal position and work out with the pair where the scrum-half pass must go to reach the fingers of No.10 with 10 running on to the ball (as I have already said in an earlier article, ideally 10 must be intercepting that ball at a 90 degree angle to the line of the pass). Most coaches insist that the fly-half (or his outside backs) does not move before the scrum-half touches that ball; I have known some backlines that move only as the fly-half touches the ball - take your choice; mine is the former. There is nothing wore than a backline that moves forward too early resulting in more pressure, passes that go behind the receiver's hip forcing him to turn to take it and thus to change his line of run and even in forward passes.

In the next article, we shall discuss the various types of passes that are expected from a scrum-half - apart from the standard pass we have just outlined - as well as his positional play.