Counter-attack continued

Friday February 27 2004

Part Two from the Guru

The Guru, in his gentle, non-prescriptive way talks some more about counter-attack, which some teams make so easy and other teams never even try.

I find it difficult to set down rules for counter-attack and prefer to play it off the cuff but you cannot do that if your players are not highly skilled and if they cannot read a game. A quick ruck or maul turnover gives a lovely ball because the opponents are usually very flat and are committed to attack. I suppose what we should say to our players in such situations is: cross the advantage line as quickly as possible and take the shortest route, but I am not really sure that this is true in all situations. I could just as easily say: you will be flat because you have been defending. From a quick turnover you have no time to get back deeper. Therefore play to the most convenient flat-lying player and then he must skip the next player, getting the ball wide, quickly, to where the defences are probably thin. You could also say when you win such a turnover ball kick behind your opponents because they are all up in attack but, perhaps, for the fullback.

The variations are numerous and that is why I like the players to play the turnover ball by ear, according the circumstances peculiar to that situation, but it makes sense to talk to your players about the various choices they have and then to practise them - I shall describe a few of the practices I use at the end of this article.

A turned over line-out to be effective must also be quick if we are going to benefit immediately from it. If it is slow it is really just like any other line-out and you would play accordingly. The quick ball I should play wide assuming that the outside opponents are deeper than they would be on defence. So, as I say, I should go wide and use for example, a dummy scissors; bringing in the fullback on the outside. Variations, however, abound.

What I am emphasising is that the more quickly you can make use of the turned over ball the better the counter will be. Dr Danie Craven used to say, "It is better to do the wrong thing quickly than it is to do the right thing slowly." Do you think that that still holds in this modern game? Possibly not. It is, anyway, certainly not the way we play. Think of how rolling mauls are set up from line-outs and those continuous patient rucks. Being an old fart I still adhere to Doc's aphorism and certainly believe it is true of counter attack - with the exception of some kicks as counters.

Let me deal with the kick as a counter.

This counter-attack nearly always involves the back three, the two wings and the fullback. It is a good idea to let them practise unopposed counter-attack over and over again. Get someone to kick to them and let them run their way out of it using switches, dummy switches, run-arounds and so on. I shall describe other practices later.

First of all, make clear what you consider to be a good counter-attack ball and what is not- a kick into the box is often not a good counter ball, for example, because the opposition forwards will be directly in front of the catcher but if it is too deep the opportunity is there. Almost any bad kick should offer counter-attack possibilities.

1. If you have space, you can counter because there is no pressure. How many times have we not seen French fullbacks running from their own line in counter-attack with devastating effect?

2. If you have immediate support, you can counter.

3. If the opponents are not deployed correctly in defence, you can counter. If their kick was a planned one, you will probably find defences well organised.

Who apart from fullback and the wings should be involved in countering the long kick? The outside centre should be the first there to support them followed by the three loose forwards. You cannot wait where you are on the field for your back three to come up to and pass you - all must try to get back to assist with the attack. Obviously, those on the tackle line when the kick is made will not get back very far but the attempt must be made.

Where do you attack? Wherever the gaps are but the danger is that by running at the gaps you draw the defence across and thus close the gaps. So you must pin the defence by running at it and then pass the ball away from it by means of a scissors move, a skip pass, both and, indeed, there are a variety of ploys you can use. Let us say the kick has been made towards your touchline, the fullback takes it and passes to his wing who is outside him; that wing runs forward and then passes behind the fullback's back to the other wing who is wide and on the field side of the fullback. He in turn can send a long skip pass out to someone supporting wide. So, you have pulled the defence on to you and then moved the ball away from it.

Jim Greenwood, that great coach, talked about feinting at strength and striking at weakness. Supposing we have two men at the kick. The wing on the outside near the touchline takes it; on his inside, field side, he has his fullback who runs towards him to take a pass and then straightens on taking it to play to the same wing who has run around behind him to emerge on his field side. The fullback by running at the wing makes that run-around that much easier. Simply put, try to "fix" the opponents by running at them then, at the right time (this calls for judgement, of course), switch the play. You want to keep the space that you have on the open side of the field and not fill it full of traffic by moving across field too early thus drawing your opponents across.

Let me add this: if you are under immediate pressure on fielding a kick, the old cliché of "pass, pass, run" still applies. The passes must be standing passes and they must be long.

Practices:

1. Another of Jim Greenwood's good ideas is to set up a practice with the wings and the fullback. You as a coach throw the ball to the back three and they walk through the actions they will take in the game. Get them to walk towards you as though they are coming up in defence, then they drop back, anticipating the kick, as you would in a game - all at a walk. Coach throws the ball. Catcher moves towards pressure (coach) and the other two walk through the various ploys already mentioned or others that they or you deem effective. When it is second nature to them, speed it up.

2. Put your three loose forwards down in a scrum against the tight forwards. Scrum-half plays with the tight forwards, puts the ball in (unopposed scrums) for the tights. Backs line behind the loose forwards. Scrum-half collects the ball from the base of the tight forwards' scrum and kicks downfield. Backs and loose forwards counter-attack against the tight forwards attempting to score. You can play it as touch rugby or you can tackle. Blow the whistle on the tackle or touch and set the next scrum where you want it.

3. Do the same thing from a line-out. Tight forwards v loose forwards and backs. Hooker throws in, tights win the ball and play it down to the scrum-half who kicks and the game is played as the previous one.

It is a good idea to use your scrum-half on the backs' side and use an extra man as the tight forwards' scrum-half so that No.9 also gets practise in counter-attacking.

4. Put your five tight forwards on the tryline, your three loose forwards, your scrum-half and your fly-half on the half way line and the outside backs on the far tryline.

Your team on the half way line kicks to the team on the tryline. The team on that try line counter-attacks against the kicking side, attempting to cross the half way line. Full on tackling, rucking mauling. If the side be countered against wins the ball from the counter-attacking side it kicks the won ball back over the backs of the counter-attackers and they have to go back to fetch the ball and counter again. If they knock on or pass forward or make any error, the ball is taken from them and once again kicked behind them. Give the counter-attackers three opportunities to reach the half way line. If they fail to do so after three attempts or if they do manage to do so within three, the counter attackers of yore now become the kickers and they kick to that other side which has been waiting on the other try line, so they now become the defenders. The first side that kicked, meanwhile, makes its way to the far try line to await their turn to counter attack. So the game is continuous.

I find this the best coaching tool in the game for you are not coaching only counter-attack here but also every skill other than scrumming and line-outs.

5. This is a coaching game I found last year, thanks to two young men. It improves skills and thus is germane to counter-attack. Play between try line and the nearest 22. Put four forwards on the try line and four on the 22. The backs are inside the twenty-two area facing the tryline, all seven of them. They have the ball. On you whistle, the backs attack the try line attempting to score. The forwards defend by means of a two-handed touch. As soon as the backs are 'tackled' or make an error, such as dropping the ball and so on, the turn around and attack the 22-metre line. As soon as they score they turn around and attack the opposite line. You give them one minute to score as many tries as they can, seven against four. They will be disastrous to begin with but just watch how they improve. I use a stopwatch for this drill. When their minute is up they become the defenders against the attacking forwards even though one of their defensive units will have only three men.

You can keep the game going for as long as you like with the two sides switching, but I find that after 10 minutes or so, they are exhausted. It is played at a cracking pace.

Try it; you'll love it.