Rugby attack tactics when wingers are standing back

Your attacking option if the winger is standing back

There are three simple tactics to use when the defending winger stands five metres or more behind the centres in defence.

1. One-on-one: Your winger should always fancy his chances one-on-one with a defender. Use moves, such as miss passes, that get the ball wide quickly, so giving your winger the time to attack their opposite number without interference from other defenders.

2. Pressure wider: Hold the opposition midfield with dummy runners, ideally drawing their winger into the defensive line, before releasing a player wide out. Even if their winger isn't drawn into the line, a well-chosen angle should be enough to wrong foot them. This is ideal if your own winger is not as speedy.

3. Cut the drift: Their defensive line is likely to want to drift out to cover the gap wide out. So you could use moves to play "against the grain", for instance switches with the fly half and centres. The objective is either to exploit gaps as defenders drift too far, or keep the defence "honest" to reduce the drift, allowing more space wide out.

Your attacking option depending on their width and speed

Width of the midfield defenders: Standing behind the posts at the start of the game, you should be able to see how the opposition midfield three stand in defence. In particular, whether they squeeze together or split apart as the ball is released from a set piece.

If they squeeze together, then attack inside their fly half (10) or beyond their outside centre (13). If they split apart, then attack the two gaps between the three players. You might even be able to identify the weaker gap between either 10 and 12, or 12 and 13.

Speed of the defence (offside cheats!): If you watch top-level matches, you will see that some international rugby sides employ a rush defence, using the speed of the midfield players to cut down the space for the opposition back line. Without good discipline, this type of defence is hard to implement.

You could, nonetheless, find yourself up against opponents who come up on you quickly, particularly if they're getting away with "stealing" metres over the offside line. You have two rugby tactics to deal with these "fast-up" defences:

1. Stand deeper - Start your moves from deeper, giving your players more time to perform their set plays. Your flankers (6 and 7) in particular will need to learn how to adjust their supporting runs.

2. Chip over the top - A chip kick over the opposition inside centre (12) as he charges up is riskier, but may well wrong-foot their entire back line.