Zone 4
This zone is all about attack, but the challenge for most teams is try-line fever. If the opposition is a strong team defensively, they'll just stand on the line and keep hitting your one-off runners backwards. Someone needs to stand back and look for the gaps
- Attacking Scrum (our ball)
- Stable quick ball, 8th man picks and a short pass to 9
- Or run a Block Pattern
- 9, 10 and the 7 must follow the ball in support
- Defensive Scrum (their ball)
- As they are trying to hook, our pack must push them off the ball.
- 9 put lots of pressure on the kicker or the 9 - whoever is the weaker link
- Lineout attack
- Quick ball off the top and to the backs (we should mix between the 2 and 4 jumpers)
- Block Pattern
- Lineout defense
- Contest their throw in, put pressure on the jumper
- Put pressure on the 9s pass
- Put pressure on the 10s kick
- Ruck
- Use pods to attack and then out to the backs
- Move pods to the side (not the center of the field) this will create space for the backs.
- Attacking kick
- as an absolute last resort use a grubber, but only if the opposition's defense is very good
- Defending a Kick
- Put pressure on their kicker as this will interrupt his kick and could even lead to a charge down.
- Penalty
- If out wide, kick to the corner and set up a lineout.
- If in the middle and the game is close, give the ball to the kicker and take 3 points.
- If the opposition is asleep
- Quick tap (Split the pods 20m apart, have the 9 tap and pass to the left or right pod
Zone 3
This is a great zone to attack with the backs, generally, teams are less focused on defence in this zone, so we want to get the ball wide and attack channel C
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- Attacking Scrum (our ball)
- Quick ball to 10 and run a Block Pattern
- 9, 10 and the 7 must follow the ball in support
- Defensive Scrum (their ball)
- As they are trying to hook, our pack must push them off the ball.
- 9 put lots of pressure on the kicker or the 9 - whoever is the weaker link
- Lineout attack
- Quick ball off the top and to the backs (we should mix between the 2 and 4 jumpers)
- Block Pattern
- Lineout defense
- Contest their throw in, put pressure on the jumper
- Put pressure on the 9s pass
- Put pressure on the 10s kick
- Ruck
- Use pods to attack and then out to the backs
- Move pods to the side (not the center of the field) this will create space for the backs.
- Attacking kick
- Little chip kicks and grubbers can be effective in this area. But we dont want to give away the ball, so limit there kicks to 2 or 3 game unless the cause a lot of problems for the defense.
- Defending a Kick
- Put pressure on their kicker as this will interrupt his kick and could even lead to a charge down.
- Penalty
- If out wide, kick to the corner and set up a lineout.
- If in the middle and the game is close, give the ball to the kicker and take 3 points.
- Attacking Scrum (our ball)
Zone 2
We want to play in their half, make that the focus of Zone 2
- Attacking Scrum (our ball)
- Stable scrum, quick ball to 10 (who has 2 options)
- Kick deep into the opposition half
- Send the ball through the hands and let the wings have a go
- Stable scrum, quick ball to 10 (who has 2 options)
- Defensive Scrum (their ball)
- As they are trying to hook, our pack must push them off the ball.
- 9 put lots of pressure on the kicker or the 9 - whoever is the weaker link
- Attacking Lineout (Our ball)
- Quick ball off the top and to the backs (we should mix between the 2 and 4 jumpers)
- Block Pattern
- Defensive Lineout (their ball)
- Contest their throw in, put pressure on the jumper
- Put pressure on the 9s pass
- Put pressure on the 10s kick
- Ruck
- It's too far for pods, get it to the backs, box kick or kick to the corners
- Attacking kick
- Kick to the corner
- Defending a Kick
- Put pressure on their kicker as this will interrupt his kick and could even lead to a charge down.
- Penalty
- kick the ball out long kick
- DO NOT TAP and RUN
Zone 1
Get the ball out of our 22, but make sure you kick it out or into space, don't kick it to a full back that's going to run it back.
- Attacking Scrum (our ball)
- Stable scrum, quick ball to 10 or 15 Kick deep into the opposition half
- Defensive Scrum (their ball)
- As they are trying to hook, our pack must push them off the ball.
- If you don’t move the scrum, loose forward look up to see where the attack is going
- 9 looks to tackle the ball runner after shouting break
- Attacking Lineout (Our ball)
- Stable, quick ball to 10 or 15 to kick out
- Defensive Lineout (their ball)
- Contest their throw in, put pressure on the jumper
- Put pressure on the 9s pass
- Ruck
- Stable quick ball to 10 or 15 to kick out
- Attacking kick
- Kick the ball into their half
- Penalty
- kick the ball out long kick
- DO NOT TAP and RUN
- In zone 1 and 2 our primary objective is to kick the ball up field into the opposition half
- In zone 3 and 4 the primary objective is to maintain possession and get deep into the opposition half so we can score a try.
How does 50:22 kick work?
With the 50:22 law in place, if an attacking team kicks the ball from anywhere in their own half and it bounces inside the opposition’s 22 before then bouncing into touch, the kicking team gets the throw at the resultant lineout