A synopsis: Scrum-half play

Tuesday December 23 2003

More advice about No.9 play from the Guru

Here the Guru, wise man in rugby ways, gives some guidelines on scrum-half play, and he speaks directly to you.

As a scrum-half you must:

Give a good, clean, quick, accurate service to your outside man.

Be a force on attack round the edges.

Be a good support player by always being a metre inside and slightly behind

The man with the ball. A big ask. You must be in position to move any ball from second and further play.

Be able to vary your play by using the boot but, like the fly-half, rarely and with effect.

Form with the back row a formidable attacking quartet.

Be a pain in defence by exerting pressure.

Direct your forwards in rucks and mauls pulling out and pushing in players in defence and attack.

Liaise between backs and forwards.

(Forwards get tired and don't think. You can play a big role here as encourager and instructor.)

You are the general from what we used to call broken play.

A pass from the ground must go directly from the ground; do not pick the ball up. Stand up and then pass. The direction of the outside foot determines where the pass goes, so fling out towards the receiver. The thigh of that leg, the arms and the back must all end up almost parallel to the ground, all pointing in the direction of your pass. Work on your weak hand, probably your left and try to make it as strong in the pass as the other.

Easy drills:

Get as many balls as you can, put them down the touchline about every two or three metres; ask a couple of your pals to play fly-half to you. Pass and move up to the next ball. The fly-half who has taken the ball runs round to place the ball beyond the next ball and comes back behind the next fly-half to be ready to take the following one ... and so on down the field.

Place a heap of balls in the middle of the field and then get players running one after the other to take a pass. Let the player, as he runs call, "Short," or "Long," and learn to adjust your pass. After receiving the pass, the player runs around and replaces his ball in the heap, then joins the queue of receivers. Work first on your right, then on your left.

On your own, get a pile of balls six metres from one of the posts; one after another, pass them at the post, trying to hit it in the same spot each time. Watch your body position.

Play touch rugby with a tennis ball.

Off the scrum:

Talk to your loose forwards about moves off the base of the scrum. The basic on is No.8 passes to scrum-half on the right hand side who can then do so many things- such as, run wide and a scissors with whatever back he chooses; run wide and play back inside to No.7 flank (right flank). You can also put your No.7 flanker between the lock and the flank on the left hand side in senior rugby and that opens up all sorts of other possibilities of moves between loose forwards and you. The other one I like on the left-hand side is the flip from No.8 between his legs to scrum-half who has moved back quite deep and wide on the left to take that flip. He will find himself in a gap. From there he has all sorts of options - the best of which is to bring the fullback in. It is effective when there is a good blind side or from the middle of the field.

Kicks:

From a kick-off that you are receiving you will see that deep behind their forwards, straight downfield, there is a huge space because fullback will have gone across and their blindside wing is up for the kick-off. Use that space by kicking down that way deep and about 10 metres in from touch.

When you kick from base of scrum or line-out, take a pace backward with the foot opposite your kicking foot so that your body protects the kick and you are moving away from the defender (almost with your back to him) and not into him, which would make it easier for him to rush your kick down. Practise what I say without the ball and see how your non-kicking foot pulls your body back and then swing your kicking foot round into the ball rather like a golf swing.

Hold the ball from point to point if you are kicking a high one, which is recommended.

Breaks:

Do not neglect your own breaks, vary your game; as I say, you must be a pain in the butt of the opponents - make the opposing loose forwards play close so that they cannot cover defend or defend wide. Learn the standard loose forward defences from scrum and line-out and exploit them.

Defence:

From the middle of the field, on their ball, you take the right-hand side fly-half; your fly-half takes the left.

Most coaches will want you to harry your opposite scrum-half from their scrums anywhere else than in the middle but I give my scrum-half licence to go for fly-half from a scrum anywhere in the field and shift the rest of the defence one out, leaving the loose forwards to look after scrum-half. This can be very dangerous from a wheeled scrum. However, I believe that once you see that your opposite scrum-half is going right from the scrum, you can safely move behind your scrum, keeping behind the last feet of it; from there you move across to fly-half in defence. You can time your moving behind quite well if you watch your opposite scrum-half like a hawk, so if your opposite is going to try to break to your right or move through the loose forwards on that side, you can stay there and not move across. It is easier than it sounds.

From the opposing side's short line-outs it is usual for you to stand at the base of the line-out to defend against anyone coming round the back but obviously, as the game progresses, you begin to read your opponents, or if you have had the opportunity to watch your opponents play before, you will know how they work.

Some coaches, following your side's kick ahead, drop the scrum-half back to cope with the almost inevitable counter kick; others have him chasing.

No.8, scrum-half, fullback, fly-half and blindside wing can be devastating in attack and I would put the hooker in there, too; there are some occasions on which you just cannot mark them adequately.