An individual and team skill
A good tackle starts with good positioning. If the feet are too far from the ball carrier, the tackler cannot make effective contact. And good positioning is both an individual and a team skill.
Start with tracking
Young Australian players are taught to track the ball carrier, even before they learn the correct tackle technique.
Tracking is about gaining the correct field and body position to execute the tackle. In the tackle, the defender needs to be close enough to hit with his shoulder and use leg drive to maximise the impact.
Tracking involves taking up the attacking team’s time and space, so pressing them into making errors. A good defensive system might turnover the ball even before it has made a tackle.
Tracking
The body movements to get into the best position to make a tackle. It is an individual skill that can be also be a team skill as each defender has to choose an attacker to track.
Tracking training
Tracking training focuses on balance and stability. We work on foot speed, agility, core stability, rotational strength and reaction time, using shadowing exercises and wrestling drills that require pushing and resisting movements.
Good technique in these exercises starts “from the ground up”. The feet should be a shoulder width apart, moving from wide to wider to preserve stability under force, and generally split, with one foot in front of the other, depending upon the direction you are applying or resisting force.
The player must keep the weight on the balls of his feet and bend at the hips and knees when lowering his centre of gravity.
These exercises are applicable from Walla rugby (the youngest age group in Australia), to the senior international team.
Indeed, Robbie Deans, Australia head coach, uses balance and stability drills. It is so fundamental to the game that I make sure my teams are doing a couple of these activities at every session.
This article is from International Rugby Coaching.
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