lineouts
The tactical issues at the lineout revolve around these core battles, regardless of team:
assembly of lifting pod(s)
competition for the ball in the air
pushing the lineout or resisting the push attacks at the line of touch
production of high quality ball to be released into the backs
Starting with lineout maul: good teams often stay on the ground to resist the drive when close to their own goal line. This makes good sense and should strongly influence tactics of both teams when the goal line is near. But even successful drives don't influence the game very much in the middle of the field, unless defenders are poorly organized, or they panic and commit too many resources to resisting the drive.
Remember that the maul must be driven 10 meters before defenders are forced back to the original lineout offside line. Within 10 meters, most mauls collapse or are stalled. Some result in turnovers. Lineout mauls simply don't have a great effect on most games, unless one forward pack is seriously overmatched.
The only team I have seen that seems able to maximize this tactic is the Uruguayan National Team. They organize their lineouts for the instant assembly of a maul, push it powerfully up the field and wait for the opposition to commit a collapsing or offside penalty, which they then kick upfield for a subsequent lineout and maul. Once close to the goal line, they will threaten most of the world's teams with a maul pushed over the goal line. It is a thin tactical porridge.
I haven't coached a team recently that wasn't able to take away ball when the opposition depended heavily on winning the ball at two. The front/back throws don't work as well in the era of the lift. As long as our best jumper was at two, in the blocks and got himself in the air, we had a very high success rate. We regularly won 10-25% of their ball and spoiled a significant proportion of the rest.
Incidentally I don't believe in using the hooker as a lifter because the team is dangerously exposed to a front peel or a tap down to the halfback at the front. The hooker can't be effective in the air war and also defend between the touch line and the 5. Besides, it is unnecessary unless he is needed as a fourth lifter (and then he should be replaced inside the 5) because the front lifter should always shuffle over the 5 before the lift. It is only the jumper who is required to stay outside the five meter line.
With a defender waving his arms at about 13 feet and fronting his opposite, he can win or spoil a great deal of ball.
Now layer in some of the other issues: it is necessary, under these circumstances to disguise where the attacking pods are being assembled. ... halfback often stands in the lineout.
You may see a runner, a lifter or a jumper standing in the halfback position. Then there is a Chinese Fire Drill and the lifting pod is suddenly assembled in a position where the opposition will find it very difficult to oppose it.
By thinning the numbers at the line of touch, two good things happen. First, you can redeploy important attacking assets among the backs.
Second, the defenders are placed in a tighter box. If they commit to the air war, they are much more exposed to peels, drives and other attacks at the line of touch. If they stay on the ground, they will concede high quality possession to an enhanced backline and may still be vulnerable to peels and double-pass attacks.
One of the most successful lineouts I have used is a Four: two lifters stand at the five and two more at the fifteen. The jumper stands at halfback and enters the line at the last moment in between any two lifters, mostly at the front or back.
As long as he doesn't barge the opposition, he is entitled to compete for the ball. It has taken the opposition a long time to get the numbers right. No one has been able to match the pods, although they could do so if they mirrored us exactly.
A sudden drive by the lifting pod, supported by the two unused lifterrs normally produced a 3 or even 5-2 advantage at the line of touch. The ball must be halfbacked by the thrower.(could use the 9 in the lineout and then he steps out and plays 9 ie a 5 man lineout) If the drive stalled, quick support from the 3 forwards standing among the backs often created quick, going-forward ball.
oppn ball - jump1/2 at 1 and lift with 2 take the lightest player on my team, forward or back, i'd put them at 1, and lift with the tallest/strongest player playing 2.
is your two jumper capable of competing in the air, or should you concede the air, and look to defend on the ground?
This is stuff you'd figure out on the training field.We knew in advance the strengths of Royce's team, but what if you don't have advanced infomation re your opposition. Is your team capable of adapting defencive strategies on the fly?
I tend to think you need to compete in the air. At very least you can wave your arms around and upset Royce's line of vision. And unless your hard up on the line, you need to back yourselves to hold a drive.
What it comes down to is the fact that each player must do their part on defence.
Seldom does the team not throwing in get a chance to contest the ball.
Admittedly, these new laws have cleaned up lineout throws, but maybe they've gone too far...making the lineout too predictable. After all, should not all aspects of a match be contestable? Is it too much like the most pointless example of a waste of time in sport - the single point convert in an American Football game?Or...
Have coaches simply developed one or two lineout options that they are comfortable with and stuck to them because of their success at winning lineout possession? What have some of the members from this list done?What about when your team does not throw in?
We tend to use a very simplified-but-unorthodox system, with the ripper standing the middle of the line between 2 3-man ;pods of front lifter / jumper / back lifter. This has the advantage of reducing the number of responsibilities for each player to a bare minimum: the #2 and #6 men always either jump, or bind around the far lifter; the #3 and #5 men always either lift, or bind around the near lifter; the #1 and #7 men always either lift or trail; the #4 man *always* rips from the jumper.
It also places the rear jumper in an unusual position, farther back, which usually messes up the opponents' defensive scheme (but also makes it harder to get the ball to him accurately).
On defense, we place the first jumper right at the front of the line and lift him, in an attempt to foil any kind of flat throw to the front. Admittedly once the opposition adjusts to this, we haven't often had much success contesting their throw -- so we focus on driving them back instead ,which works well
Well, we run the occasional 2 or 3-man lineout when circumstances dictate:
of course, the fact that we don't have an obvious dominant jumper (esp. on the 1st XV) is a prime factor in this. We do, however, have great speed and athleticism in the pack, so a short lineout with moving jumpers works well in the right situations.
We've also seen a few teams use short lineouts against us, particularly if we are dominant in the pack and able to spoil their ball or drive them back hard after the catch.
There appears to be little variation on the type of throw and target jumper - the vast majority of lineout throws appears to be directed at the #1 jumper.
We tend to mix it up based on where they position their prime jumper (ie. we throw it away from him). Of course, the frequent inability of the thrower to accurately put the ball anywhere past #1 is also a factor here. :) I wonder if anyone else thinks the skill of lineout throwing has degraded, or is it just me?
LINEOUTS
The first thing they said was that we were going to far across the line-out, and our jumpers weren't going straight up enough.
There were several things that they said we should do:
1) beat the opposition with foot movement, and then jump straight up, to get the maximum height from the lifters
2) Get your player standing at 1 to get as big a gap as possible, and to actively involve the ref with this to show him you are trying to help. Then get everyone else to stand an extra 1/2 yard out.
3) Throw the ball straight, but along the line of your jumpers, this will make it very hard for the opposition to get near the ball, but won't get blown up by the ref.
4) Don't jump across, this puts you closer to the opposition, and therefor easier to spoil.
5) practice until the timing with the hooker is perfect.
We were also taught a good drill to practise the perfect lifting techinque. I'm going to try and explain it the best I can, but it may not be that easy, so bear with me:
1) Get 4 lifters and 2 jumpers.
2) Get the jumpers to stand facing each other, and the lifters as they would be in a line-out (one either side of each jumper).
3) Give jumper number 1 a ball, and then lift him. Hold him at the top of his jump until jumper number 2 has been lifted, jumper number 1 then passes him the ball and returns to the floor, jumper number 2 is held at the top of his jump until jumper number 1 is lifted again, and then the ball is passed back, keep doing this until you can do 20 passes without an error.When you can do 20, your lifting ability is pretty good.
A little word on actual technique:
1) get as low as you can before starting lifting2
) make sure your jumper has baggy shorts on for easier grip
3) grab the bottom of the shorts for maximum height
4) straighten and lock your arms until the ball has been taken.
Lineout variations to two.
1) throw to four or six - do it alot - especially if two doesn't work.
2) break up the rhythum of your jump - alternate between fast and flat, andlobbed throws and the associated jumps.
3) dummy your jump - just because you cant lift before the ball leaves thehookers hands doesn't mean you cant get two to just jump
If the oppo lift their 2 in response to the dummy jump apeal like a mad thing for the free kick - pre-empting the lift does not just apply to the team in posession.
Most refs will ignore your plaintiff cries, but it makes the opposition think of something else - when there jumper starts to come down,lift yours and claim the ball without an opposition in the air.
4) throw the ball flat and hard at chest height to your two just after (s)he has landed from the afore mentioned dummy jump. Another version is to do it with out the call - or whilst the half back is in the middle of a call, or has just yelled out change call(takes planning that one).
5) Lift as per normal, (well not quite) pretend to lift as normal, but only with the three lifter ( the oppo will reply like normal ) and get the non used one lifter to turn around and recieve the throw at chest level.
6) throw the ball to the feet of the person at one who then kicks it back to the hooker who starts a run to glory down the touch line (helps if one is an ex soccer player - and that hooker has abnormally huge hands - otherwise its just impossible to catch the football as we all know)
7) plan for the day your best laid plans don't work - have something different or special as back up to your bread and butter ploys.
Two is the safest sureest ball, this also applies to variations and trickery at two.
The jumper was getting lifted up AND forward. His arms were thrust forward at an upward angle instead of straight up. I couldn't connect with my #2 jumper at all because this fellow was catching the ball a full 2 meters ahead of my jumper!
Later, it occurred to me that their front three in the lineout were taking a step towards me immediately before the throw-in. The #1 lifter was on my side of the 5M!
Beautiful technique and they got away with it beautifully (even with an American Ref!). We use it here once the ref begins to move and isn't watching the footplacement; of the #1.
Firstly we compressed our lineout. Our tail gunner was still on the fifteen meter line, but our number one lifter was 4 meters behind the line. (with the other five packed in sardene like betwixt them.
This gave us four options.1) Two throws back to the hooker. (It depended where the oposition hooker stood, some like the five meter line, some like to stand closer to the thrower.)
2) Two taps to the half back running through the 4 meter gap. (this worked well if the oppo hooker stood near the thrower.
3) Lock taped one lifter on the sholder and One turned ran forward and got the throw from the hooker at a good catchable hight, and charged forward.(this worked well when the oppo hooker stood an the five, with his back towards the thrower.)
4) We used the whole thing as a ploy and went to double lifted six. (this was for when the opposition did not mark up our compressed line and just stayed where they normally stand - don't laugh it actually happened a few times.)
What we did was make a call for the compressed line, wait a second or two to see how the opposition marked up, and then make a call for the throw option 1,2,3 or 4.
We also discovered that it was a way of circumventing the non throwing opposition using the hooker as a lifter, with the jumper at one.
The major problem with training for it is that the hookers tend to want to throw flat, when what is needed is a more lobbed throw, as two is standing about where four normally stands.
We didn't want to use the ploys from a shortened lineout, because we like to keep the opposition forwards together - rather than have them where they can get in the way.We used it all over the field, the compressed line meant you were not flurting with the touch line which is a draw back of the ploy from a normal line.