I don’t think we play enough ‘proper’ Touch Rugby here in Canada – already I’ve lost the attention of tight five forwards, but watching Australian front rowers yesterday with better hands and tactical awareness (how good are the ‘Bens’ – Robinson and Alexander?) than your average Canadian fly half only proved how useful it is for EVERYONE to have these skills.
What better way to acquire sublime passing, running (both with and without the ball), and tactical awareness skills than a good old game of Touch? Now, note above I said ‘proper’ Touch. What I mean is one of several versions of the game which requires defenders to retreat 5m after making a touch. Readers in other countries might be thinking, “Yeah, that’s standard, what do you mean?” Well here in Canada, it’s more common to see defenders standing an arm’s length from the point the touch was made. As you’d imagine, this means the defenders are well ahead of the offside line once the ball is passed and your average game of Canadian Touch is a series of ‘crash balls’, getting it in the hands of the fast player, or waiting for someone to make a huge mistake on defence. There’s very little creativity.
I first played the ‘proper’ version when I took up coaching and teaching in England, and it opened my eyes to a whole new rugby world. I suddenly had more time and space with the ball, and within a few weeks became a relative attacking maestro compared to my old self! I saw space, I used space, I created space, and I put others into space – all because I had 5m and a few more seconds to recognise it. Even better, my team mates had time and had the presence of mind to provide me with options. As the ‘slower’ but ‘smarter’ one on my team, I actually became the regular first receiver – in effect, a 240lb fly half! What fun it was!
So if you’re not already doing so, I urge all of you to adopt this one simple element. You might need someone to take a spell at reffing to make sure they’re always getting back 5m – or have someone rotate in every try – and the game will be a lot more interesting. Below, I’ve listed some variations of Touch which I love, all encompassing the 5m retreat (unless otherwise stated):
Basic Touch
Between 5-8 per side (min-max), allowing for best use of a half field. You want to maintain enough space between players to allow for attacks to occur. Too many players on, and there’ll be no room to move. If space is limited, try sides that rotate in after a try is scored. I believe the following is a mix of Touch and OzTag, with some of my own wishes thrown in to make it transferrable to contact rugby:
- 6 touches until the ball is turned over
- Two-handed touch (emphasising good body positions to transfer into the contact game)
- Touched player must do a ‘rollball’ (ball on the ground, rolled back with foot) at the point of the touch – what this does is equates the amount of time it takes for the defence to march back 5m, making it a fairer contest. If a player over-runs that mark, they must get back, again, so as not to punish the defence.
- If the Dummy Half (i.e. person who plays the ball after the touch) is touched, the ball is automatically turned over. The DH can take the ball and run, but cannot score.
- Retreating defender touch counts – prevents attacking players from just ‘picking and going’ down the middle over and over.
- Rollball is over if ‘sky above’ it, allowing the defence to rush up. Touched player can hold with foot, but not for too long.
- **for fun … allow a kick on ‘touches’ 4, 5, and 6.**
Ruck Touch
When we have too many players and don’t want to have a bunch of players sitting off – OR want to work on support and working hard off the ball, Ruck Touch is a great option. It’s very same to the game above, but instead of a rollball, the touched player hits the ground and practices a text-book placement of the ball. The different elements, bringing in the ‘ruck’ are as follows:
- Ball carrier goes to ground and lays the ball back / Defender who makes the touch does one push-up, and must move away from the contact area.
- The next player to arrive from BOTH sides must also hit the ground in the contact area and do a push-up. Once on their feet, they are allowed to play the ball …
- … or the NEXT (i.e. second) player from either side may play the ball (so long as they go through ‘the gate’ – from behind/over the person who laid it back).
- The players on the ground cannot interfere. The ball carrier needs to focus on making a long, secure placement, while the touching defender needs to focus on rolling away quickly (I save the jackalling technique for contact drills).
- For the next players to arrive, it’s in their best interest to get to the break down quickly, and get down-and-up so they can play the ball. This favours teams who support each other and punishes teams which not only do not support each other, but also whose ball carriers run away from support, or run into double coverage.
Turnover Touch
With sufficient space available, and wanting to put more pressure on your players to perform certain tasks, make it so being touched creates a turnover situation. This forces players to be more creative, look for space, and make timely, accurate passes. It’s best used with experienced players, but can provide a steep learning curve for newer ones if you give them enough width to work in and stress patience until they get the hang of it (there’ll be a lot of subsequent turnovers for newbies). For each of these, the touched team must drop the ball at the point of the touch and immediately retreat 5m.
One-Handed Turnover – The typical version of Touch the world over, I don’t like this so much for players who are focusing on contact rugby as I think the one handed aspect enforces poor defensive positioning. Players get too high and don’t square up with the ball carrier. However, with a disciplined group this version can drastically improve quick handling, deception, timing, and the creation/preservation of space given the urgency required.
Two-Handed Turnover – Re-inforcing proper defensive positioning for contact rugby, this version requires more discipline.
Four-Handed Turnover – This version requires two different defenders to make two-handed touches on a ball carrier, emphasising the double tackle and defending as a unit. For the attacking team, this allows for offloading and working on support lines around the contact area. With just one two-handed touch, the ball carrier is still free to run (but not score!) and find support runners. It also encourages attacking players to isolate defenders (i.e. not running into double coverage) and beat them with one-on-one moves, allowing them to realise that getting around/behind defenders creates space for their support runners elsewhere.
… I also would much rather use this instead of standard fitness, and try to end training sessions with about 20 minutes of Touch, especially to apply anything learned earlier in a game situation, working on our Game Sense.
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