Here is a good summary of the Springboks success over the Tri Nations and, by association, the Lions. It comes from the sports blog, the Roar.

A third Tri Nations championship to the Springboks has capped off a year of achievement for South African rugby, writes Sam Taulelei for The Roar.
Coach Peter de Villiers and his assistants Dick Muir and Gary Gold changed their freestyle approach from last year and developed a more structured, playing strategy based upon pressure, pressure, pressure. A quote from NZ rugby columnist Marc Hinton succinctly sums up their season: “The reality is the Boks don’t beat you with their brilliance. They beat you with their resilience.”

By applying and sustaining pressure they strangled the life out of their opposition like a giant anaconda. They were dominant at the lineout, and used intelligent, accurate kicking, strong defence and relentless chasing. However it was the introduction of two newcomers to the side that had a dramatic effect on the Springboks fortunes in this year’s Tri Nations.

The enforced selection of impressive newcomer Heinrich Brussow through injury to Schalk Burger, proved to be an inspired and inspirational choice.
A large part of the Springboks’ success was a lack of serious injury; they were a largely settled squad and were able to establish combinations particularly in key positions.

Will their Tri Nations success automatically translate to a successful, unbeaten spring tour for the Springboks? This sees tests against France, Italy and Ireland, plus midweek matches against English Guinness Premiership clubs Leicester Tigers and Saracens.

Read more here.

It is often said that defence wins rugby games. South Africa’s win against Australia this weekend in the Tri Nations goes along way to prove that point.

Ironically, Australia scored more tries, but they could not break the Springbok defensive stranglehold. There was simply no room for the Aussies, and they made handling errors, gave away penalities and had three yellow cards. The Springboks played a terrority game, kicking into the corners and pressurising the Australians into running out towards an agressive defensive line.

However, there was a good example of how teams can score tries from first phase lineout ball. Against the much vaunted South African lineout defence, throwing to anywhere but the front of lineout can mean lost ball. Front ball is not such good attacking ball.

BUtthe Wallabies did throw to the front. Instead of passing straight out to the backs, 9 passed to 7 (George Smith) who had dropped off the back of the lineout. He attacked the backline, acting as a sort of 9 and a half. Using a simple backs move to hold the midfield, the ball was spun out to allow a one-on-one for the full back. His momentum and good footwork took him over the line. Watch in the first few minutes of this clip.

The most important lineout ELV has changed back to the old law of matching numbers.

The other lineout ELVs, which are here to stay, removed the anomalies from beforehand. The player standing in the traditional defensive hooker position cannot lift, the receiver has to stand two metres from the line until the ball is thrown in and lifting (as if it wasn’t before) is allowed.

So we will have a return to shortened lineouts and all the variations they provided. Some teams at the top end of the game were using them anyway, despite the opposition being able to have any amount of players in the lineout.

The principles of good lifting and throwing remain, but there are lots of opportunities to win the lineout AND to use the rolling maul from the lineout.

And I think it is the last prospect that makes winning the lineout well even more interesting. You cannot maul from poor lineout. You have to win the ball cleanly and so it is good to get into space to make an uncontested catch. Then you have to transfer the ball away from the catcher before he is pulled over.

Right then, back to the shortened lineout variations and developing the rolling maul.

A little piece of history was made on Saturday. The Bridgend Ravens beat Neath at the Gnoll for the first time since 1982. A Welsh Premiership match with bags of atmosphere, and a sizeable crowd for a wet and windy Saturday afternoon.

Bridgend are perhaps the least financially secure of a league with bridges the gap between the amateur and professional game in Wales. What makes their position even more precarious is news from the Super League. The Celtic Crusaders have won a franchise into Europe’s top level rugby league competition for 2009 and, for the first time, top class rugby league will be played on the fields of Wales.

Wait. Not the first time, because the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff has seen plenty of rugby league finals and one-offs. But now it will be regular games with all the razzmatazz and raw rugby that top league brings.

Many in the Bridgend area worry that rugby union will lose out. The local big club, the Ospreys in Swansea, is just too far away to stop the tide of young players falling away from union they say.

Does this argument sound familiar? Change the accent to somewhere south of Singapore and you might think you are not in the valleys but in the outback.

Some argue that the Australian rugby authorities are fighting back in the battle of the two codes because they think fans prefer the 13-a-side game. The ELVs are a direct consequence.

The ELV evidence is different. Scrums still play a vital part in the game as do lineouts and rucks still need to be won. This makes the union game unique. Coaches are not changing their technical coaching, more their tactical plans.

Another argument is that rugby league will diminish the pool of players available.

Don’t panic though. Rugby as a whole co-exists with football and martial arts as well as skateboarding and computer games. Youngsters will drop out of rugby for plenty of reasons and more rugby league will not be a problem. In fact it could be good thing. It will attract more players into rugby as a whole. The big, fast runners might leave rugby union and go to league. This opens the gates for other types of players into the young end of the game unable to find game time normally.

I see good things from the new league impetus. It will certainly make the union people shape up to work harder to look after the game at grassroots.

Here is a quick guide to RL for those who might have forgotten the rules!

There has been plenty of confusion and misinformation, plus a number of conspiracy theories about the ELVs. The world’s top coaches see the ELVs as here, an opportunity and are working how to deal with them.

Here is what the top coaches are saying at the moment.

Graham Henry after the first Tri Nations game:  “If you asked the All Blacks what they enjoy playing the most they’d rather play with the new ELVs in place. They enjoy that game. It’s more open, it’s more athletic. From coaches who have coached the game a long time, we find it less structured and I guess that creates challenges in itself. It’s a game where you have to play off the cuff a lot more and play what you see. It’s not as structured as the old laws were. The two new ones (the lineout numbers and maul being pulled down), the jury is still out, still waiting to see how sides cope with them.”

But his forwards coach is not enamoured with the new lineout law.

Steve Hansen, All Black assistant coach: “They (the International Rugby Board) have possibly made a mistake. The contest in the line-out has been flipped over to one side. The defending team has got an advantage. Currently I think they are too much in favour of the defending side and the decision to make those laws have been based around making it easier for the referee so he doesn’t have to count numbers. As we play more games we’ll get better at exploiting them, both on attack and defence.”

And here are the comments before the start of the Tri Nations tournaments.

Peter de Villiers, South Africa coach: “ELVs give us a chance to explore, to speed up the game and there will be more passing. They should bring the true nature of the sport to the fore. The one I’m a big fan of is the not passing back into your own 22. It should help the game to be more positive.”

Robbie Deans, the Australia coach: “There’s a little bit of difference in so far as the ball can be in play a little bit longer and that teams that want to can choose to take the initiative if they want to and take quick free-kicks (though not true of the 13 ELVs for the Northern Hemisphere). The game has become less and less discernible from what was there before, which is good because there is scope for teams to be attacking and positive.”

Graham Henry before the Tri Nations tournament: “The big thing about ELVs is the tackle area still and the refereeing of the tackle area. If the refereeing is accurate and the team plays well in that area and is highly skilled then that increases the spectacle of the game.”

Ian McGeechan, London Wasps and Lions coach: “It’ll be interesting to see the impact it has on, not only on players, but on coaches and how they interpret them. You need to be coaching and playing under the ELVs to make the most of them. They’re here now and that’s what we have to deal with but I liked the word ‘experimental’.”

Warren Gatland, Wales coach: “I didn’t see anything wrong with the game as long as you get a strong referee. The five-metre rule and allowing a quick throw to a lineout to go backwards are very positive. Allowing hands in the ruck is concerning (not coming in at the moment), along with players being allowed to collapse the maul, plus the change in the number of players at lineouts. These may change the nature of the game.”

Frank Hadden, Scotland coach: “It’s important they are tested comprehensively and at all levels before they are adopted. All have some merit in the sense that they are attempting to address concerns. I’ve seen them in operation in Scottish club matches and was broadly happy with what I saw.”

Syd Millar, former International Rugby Board chairman when it was decided to trial the new laws in the Super 14: “Defences are on top at the moment. We need to free the game up a bit, make it easier to play, easier to referee, easier to understand and we have to produce more options for players.”

They are here and whatever your opinion on them, you are going to have to play with them for the next year at least. There are 13 ELVs to consider and I have already passed on my first thoughts in this blog. 

Practically you need to work the ELVs into your training programme, so here are five ways you can approach this.

1. The information meeting

Start with a 20 minute presentation and Q&A session, preferably with a referee, on the key changes. Make this session a “no discussion of the merits” session. Ban the expression “I don’t like” and similar thoughts. This is a time to work out what is changing and how it affects individuals.

2. The tactical meeting

Following this meeting and perhaps at a later date, your units should have a short meeting to discuss how they think the changes will affect their game. You can supply them with a list of pertinent questions such as: How does it affect my role? What will happen at the scrum, lineout and from open play? What are the implications for my unit? How will opposition sides react?

From this meeting you can start a process of introducing any new tactics, with the bidding of the players. They might even come up with ideas of their own.

3. The technical session

Technically, there is one key area to focus on from the ELVs, pulling down the maul. You need to think of this in attack and defence. This month’s Rugby Coach Newsletter, published on Wednesday 9th July, will highlight some of the current thinking here.

4. The tactical session

A tactical session is running through your game plans on the field of play. You will be using new lineout and scrum manoeuvres as well as thinking about the impact of the kicking game around your own 22m line.

5.  The same old same old

All the experiments have proved that the game remains pretty much the same. Your players need to be fitter, faster and better skilled, new laws or not.

But you still need to look like you are one step ahead, hence the need for this step-by-step plan.

The Irish losses to Australia and New Zealand over the past fortnight were tight enough results. Yet for some reason, watching the matches and re-watching them left a feeling of inevitability about both outcomes. 

The bottom line is that you cannot win a game without being able to control the ball on your own terms in the lineout and the scrum. I don’t care about the physicality of the Polynesians or Richie McCaw’s interpretation of the breakdown laws or snappy off-loads from the Wallabies. Ireland are well able to compete at the top level in broken play, at the breakdown and out wide.

The coaching staff acknowledged this. The players acknowledged this. Yet the mistakes were repeated and the weakness exposed again, one week later in the Australian game.

The question I ask is do we have the knowledge of the Blacks or the Australians in the scrum? The answer has to be a resounding no if we continue to be battered in these areas. If there is a coaching deficit at the top level in forward play then what does that say about the quality of these facets of the game at the lower levels? At AIL, at Junior Rugby, at schoolboys, at youths? What sort of skills are we coaching at the grass-roots if our national team cannot get the basics? 

In both games, Ireland struggled in the scrum and lineout. This is nothing new. There is no consistency, no confidence; no base for Ireland to build on in play, be it in the 1st minute or the 79th minute. Its impossible to close out a game, to chase a game, to win a game, at any level, without being able to trust fully in your team’s ability to win their own ball at the set-piece.

The game in Ireland should be striving to be the best it can be, if there is something out there we can learn, or people that we can learn from, we should find them and use what they know. The holes have to be plugged.

The ELVs will affect your rugby tactics and you need to decide how you will change your coaching and rugby drills.

Many of us have no firsthand experience of the new laws in action, so it is important to glean as much information from those who have. One way is to look some video footage to understand which rugby techniques you are going to adjust.

There are 13 ELVs, Experimental Law Variations, to take into account. The iRB produced a promotional video of all the ELVs, so we must make sure we know which ones are going to be used before we get too lost in the all the drama.

ELV summary

1. Lineout numbers: the defence does not need to match the attack, as long as they have at least two.

2. The defending hooker must be 2m away from the front of the lineout if standing in the 5m channel.

3. The receiver at the lineout (normally 9) needs to be 2m from the lineout.

4. A ball kicked from the 22m has no gain in ground if it goes into touch if it was passed back into 22m unless there is a subsequent breakdown.

5. Lifting is allowed.

6. Both teams must be 5m back from the hindmost feet of the rugby scrum until the ball has left the scrum. A defending scrum half must stay in close proximity to the scrum or move back 5m.

7. Touching the corner flag does not mean the player has gone into touch.

8. A quick throw in does not need to be straight.

9. A maul can be brought down by tackling above the hips.

Not all the laws apply to you

At U19 and below, individual unions can decide on what laws they want to apply to each age group. The RFU has already decided that the maul pull down is not appropriate for the U19 English game at this stage.

But it will apply to all the senior teams.

Coaching lessons

1. Don’t ignore the basic techniques because the principles of the game remain the same.

2. Kick and chase is crucial. (see the June issue of Rugby Coach published on Wednesday 13th June)

3. Lineout variations will still apply.

4. Mauling is NOT dead, just more dynamic.

5. Back row moves and backs moves are more important than before.

6. Teams will still need rugby coaches – someone will have to work out what to do next!

Dan Cottrell

www.betterrugbycoaching.com

Not everyone is cut out to play Hooker. Hookers need to be adaptable. They’re grunts, angry grunts who do mainly grunt work. But they are grunts who, similarly to a 9, 10 or place-kicker, can potentially kill a game if they do not perform their additional task to the grunting.

The Lineout.

Success in the lineout is a continuous ideal for any self-respecting pack of forwards. Like scrummaging, it is an art rooted in organisation, timing and pressure. It is the Hooker who must cope with this pressure. 

The guy who throws your Darts needs to be a composed individual. He should have a level of intelligence that is beyond average. He should be able to read the game. He should be a leader. Leaders can handle pressure. His routine should be similar to that of a place-kicker, rehearsed over and over. He should have a rhythm for every throw. 

From scratch…

• Face the line out square on. Keep the hips in line with the lineout… 
• Feet position is a matter of preference. Comfort is king here.
• Picture the space you are planning to hit.
• Trust your jumpers
• Follow through with straight arms, finishing with your thumbs together like a picture-frame after the ball has been released.
• Practice Practice Practice

Many players are under the illusion that set-piece time is really a break in play and a breather for both teams. This attitude will only make the life of a hooker more difficult, and even the best crumble under pressure when their is no support. There is no room for illusionists at the line-out, only cool, attentive grunters.