Don’t get fooled by the fourth principle of attacking rugby

Last week, we looked at the third principle of attacking rugby, which is support. It comes after gain possession and go forward.

The fourth principle is continuity. That can be defined as retaining possession after the tackle, when you can’t pass. In an ideal world, you would skip "rucks" and go straight to scoring tries, but sometimes you need to recycle the possession after the ball carrier has been brought to the ground.

The most common outcome of the completed tackle is a ruck. Depending on the standard of your team, you will probably have a ruck every 15-30 seconds of ball-in-play time. So, there will be plenty of rucks. You will need to win this contest, and then work out what to do next.

So, though you need to work on rucking skills, don't be fooled. In other words, you need to concentrate just as hard on what happens before and after.

I’ve put together a basic guide to some of the Core skills of rucking from our Coaching Rugby guide. It shows you a “seat-belt” type clear out, which must be avoided for safety reasons.

Then we have three activities to help develop decision-making around what happens before and after the ruck.

Ruck and Roll develops plays around winning the next phase. It’s based on the idea of beating the defence into position.

We also need all our players to win ruck ball, not just the forwards. Alternate rucks helps your team share the responsibility to retaining possession.

Finally, our expert session delves into some of the techniques that the All Blacks use to improve their decision making.