Preseason: Drive your Defence
Here's a range of ideas to boost your team's defence this preseason. You can put them together in one session or spread them out.
Following the article on adding elements to preseason so it doesn’t feel like ‘fitness, fitness, fitness’, here’s some activities that you can bring into a preseason training session to focus on defence. You can also use these activities all year round. I’ve listed them here because you can easily slot them into a preseason session.
I’ve focused on the principles of play: go forward, support, continuity and pressure. Each PoP has a technical station and a game station. Both stations add in fitness, but it’s less overt. Rugby fitness is diverse, it’s important to stress this through a range of different activities. Defense-focused preseason training can help with this message through activities like races and contact wrestling.
Build upon strong foundations by using Contact Confident activities in preseason and in the regular season. The programme contains examples such as bearcrawls and partner carries that are ideal for preseason technical or fitness stations.
Go Forward
Game station: Races
Split players into two teams. Make sure there is a mixture of sprint pace across the teams to make it fair. Ask players to find a member of the opposition who is roughly the same pace as them. The players race against someone from the opposition. If a player wins that race, they get 1 point for their team. The team with the most points wins.
You can vary this by giving one player a ball and making another player a defender. If the defender tags them, the defender wins. If the ball carrier scores a try, they win. Players can start from the same line or you can angle the cones so the defender has to track the ball carrier down.
Technical station: Partner carries
Every player finds a partner. They line up and must race to the finish line. Each race is a different type of partner carry. The partner carries could include piggybacks or wheelbarrows. Check out Contact Confident for a video on different partner carries and how to coach them.
Support
Game station: Double tag
Play a game of touch. If the defending team make a double tag (2 people touch tackling the ball carrier), then the ball is turned over. This game is best suited for larger numbers (5v5 or more). You can make the playing area larger to make the defenders work harder.
Technical station: Bearcrawl squares
Set up a number of squares using cones. The squares should be a minimum of 3mx3m. Players must bearcrawl round the squares, but they face the same way at all times. This gets them moving fowards, right, backwards and left all in a bearcrawl. This is ideal to work on fundamentals of ruck, scrum, maul and tackle.
Continuity
Game station: Gainline game
Play a standard game of touch rugby. If the defenders make 3 touches that get the attackers behind the gainline, the ball is turned over. You can level this game up in challenge and intensity by adding a rule: the defenders now must get the attackers behind the gainline twice in a row to win the ball. This increases the focus on continuity in defence and increases the fitness challenge.
Technical station: Repeated tags/tackles
Create a small playing area. Give the attackers an overlap (2v1, 3v2). The ball carriers have to score on the tryline, if they do they turn and burn (attack the other tryline). Attackers have 3 rounds of attack before swapping. The defenders aim to continously make touch tackles, hugs/wraps or tackles. Each time a tackle is complete (this will vary depending on the scale of contact), the defender must aim to make another tackle. The defenders aim to continuously get up and make tackles to force the attackers to make a mistake. The fitness comes from the repeated energy in defence (especially if using the 2v1 version).
Pressure
Game station: Defend the zones
Split the pitch into 3 zones. Attackers are allowed 4 touch tackles in each zone. If the defenders pin them in a zone for 4 touch tackles, the defending team gain points. If the attackers don’t escape the 1st zone, the defenders get 3 points. If the attackers don’t escape the 2nd zone, the defenders get 2 points. If the attackers make it to the 3rd zone but don’t score within 4 touch tackles, the defenders get 1 point. If the attackers score, the defenders don’t get a point. The defending team has 3 rounds to defend before swapping. The team that has the most points wins.
Technical station: Rip and wrestle
Organise players into pairs. Give each pair a ball. Players start with the ball in between them, with both their hands on the ball. On your signal, they must continuously try and rip the ball from each other for 30 secs. If a player successfully rips the ball away, they score a point and iimmediately reset. After the 30 seconds, the player will the most points wins. Winners move to a different partner. If it’s a tie, both players stay. The activity resets and players go for another 30 second round. This continuous activity is a lower level contact exercise, but it helps players get confidence in contact as well as develop their fitness.
It’s also a great reminder that rugby fitness can look like a range of things, including being fast and being strong.
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