Young rugby players mimic league too much
Roar Guru By stillmissit, 23 Jun 2010 stillmissit is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- baby blacks, Junior World Trophy, Rugby League, Rugby Union, wallabies
I just watched our Under 20’s get demolished by the Baby Blacks in the Junior World Trophy. The thing that annoys the hell out of me is the amount of influence on our rugby union players by rugby league.
This has been slowly building in Australia for years, and is now endemic in union. Most young players follow league closely, have favourite league players, and are great admirers of the ‘big hit’ and the ‘big run’, thus getting isolated and penalised for no arms in the tackle.
These are my main concerns regarding the impact this love of league produces:
* Little support for players taking the ball up, either forwards prepared for a breakdown/pass or backs looking for a pass/breakdown
* Preference to standing in the defensive line rather than contest a breakdown, i.e. the White Flag v All Blacks in Wellington last year
* Strong support for making a big run instead of doing the job needed, i.e. the ‘Dunning’ factor
* Cross field crabbing by backs, which is classic league
* Prefer to take the ball to tackle rather than look for support or a pass
* Throwing 20 percent passes just before they get tackled instead of off loading earlier
* Poor breakdown work with little commitment, and almost no counter rucking
* Scrummaging that is barely competitive
* Forwards have no idea of running in pods, and prefer to play alone
* Players seem to almost ignore the chase after a kick in mid field.
The two points I would like to see us take from league is the offload in the tackle, and the tactical kicking, both of which we don’t do well.
The points I have made above were all on show today against the baby blacks, and they were on show against the English last week.
If we are not prepared to learn our game, and play to the level of New Zealand and South Africa then our position at number four in the world is deserved. The only thing that keeps us competitive is our ability to run with the ball, and our fitness, this will not be enough against the All Blacks or the South Africans in this years Tri-Nations.
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- Explore:
- baby blacks, Junior World Trophy, Rugby League, Rugby Union, wallabies
June 23rd 2010 @ 4:26am
trumpetblower said | June 23rd 2010 @ 4:26am | Report comment
I cannot believe you are blaming rugby league for rugby unions problems! Maybe if you took more responsibility for your players these sort of scorelines would not happen. This awful hatred of rugby league is petty and prehistoric and you are the reason so many leagueys have a so called chip on their shoulder about union. What a pathetic attempt at blaming a total other sport for your sports failings! Shameful, absolutely.
June 23rd 2010 @ 6:16am
Joh4Canberra said | June 23rd 2010 @ 6:16am | Report comment
I didn’t think he was bagging RL as such, merely saying that what works in RL doesn’t necessarily work in RU (which is true).
June 23rd 2010 @ 6:42am
stillmissit said | June 23rd 2010 @ 6:42am | Report comment
Trumpet – I agree with you about taking responsibility for our own game. I am not bagging RL in fact it is a form of flattery to say our players copy what they see their league counterparts doing. All I am saying is, and I think most league supporters these days would agree, the games are very different when you come to play them. Ask just about any of the League converts and they would confirm this.
June 23rd 2010 @ 3:40pm
Dogs Of War said | June 23rd 2010 @ 3:40pm | Report comment
Really that comes down to poor coaching. Something the ARU must fix. More exposure to the game on TV couldn’t hurt either, so juniors case see what effective running lines in Union look like. Maybe something else the ARU could produce, dvd’s (or even just somewhere to download on there site), tips and tricks to play each position (which coaches could probably learn a thing or two from as well).
June 23rd 2010 @ 4:39pm
sixo_clock said | June 23rd 2010 @ 4:39pm | Report comment
Dearest Trumpetblower,
Read the words Stillmissit used carefully, it seems your eyes glazed over when you saw the reference to league.
To clarify – there are tactics you can employ successfully in a league game that do not have the same effect in Union. Therefore youngsters who imitate those things at rep level in Union are letting themselves and their team down. By the way even the Wallabies make the same mistakes. Now don’t let your preferred code down by making any more silly logic errors.
June 23rd 2010 @ 4:54pm
trumpetblower said | June 23rd 2010 @ 4:54pm | Report comment
Dear six o clock, I have read the article quite fine and I think it is still wrong to blame the lack of good coaching on “union kids try to copy league too much”. There is no glazing there! Maybe instead of worrying about what influence another sport has on your own playing style aussie union followers should look at other union countries beating them and study what they can improve on and coach their kids properly rather than looking at the other code and saying “our kids watch too much of them”. If the guys genuinely love RU than why on earth would they try and copy what another player from another sport does? Wouldn’t they try and emulate their own RU stars? To me this is just a cop out, and the use of league as a scapegoat for the failings of your own sport.
June 24th 2010 @ 11:10am
sixo_clock said | June 24th 2010 @ 11:10am | Report comment
Dear dear Trumpetblower,
League is not being BLAMED at all.
Only its INFLUENCE stemming probably from its level of TV coverage. You have to admit that the REASON there can never be a free flowing interchange of players between our different codes is the central element of what is being discussed. That the methods, tactics and mindset of a league player has virtually no currency on the Rugby Pitch. We are a team sport which requires every single action to have at its core ‘What Is Best For The Team Here’, in league you can for an entire career just go for a gallop. The original analysis is absolutely correct in pinpointing the source of this ‘bad’ influence and it very correctly has been posted for discussion in a Union forum where we may be able to influence some Union coaches to address this Union problem.
Ps: CAPITALS for emphasis only, not sms shouting.
Apology forthcoming, or can’t you admit you made a mistake?
June 23rd 2010 @ 5:19am
Nicol'arse said | June 23rd 2010 @ 5:19am | Report comment
Good article SMI
June 23rd 2010 @ 6:52am
Sam Taulelei said | June 23rd 2010 @ 6:52am | Report comment
Stillmissit
I’ve only seen the final and read the results in the games leading up to the final. Australia has done well to make the final this year with the youngest squad at the tournament and this will be an invaluable lesson if they learn from the loss and retain the majority of the team for next year. Are your observations magnified only because of the loss to NZ, or have they also been evident in their leadup games which they won? How much responsibility lies in the coaching of these players, not just by David Nucifora but also their local club and schoolboy coaches, to eradicate these habits?
On Monday I read an article in the Australian by Wayne Smith on the performance of the Australian U20 team in particular the dominance of their scrum against England in their semifinal and and the danger their backs pose with ball in hand, in particular their back three. Apparently the U20 front row is bigger than the current Wallaby front row. The article was positive about their chances against NZ and with the expectation that many of these players will eventually filter through to Super rugby sides and the Wallabies augured well for the future.
Is it just a case of one bad game clouding their overall achievements and performances or has this been a noticeable trend?
June 23rd 2010 @ 8:44pm
Pete said | June 23rd 2010 @ 8:44pm | Report comment
This NZ team was unbelievable. I haven’t watched an all round great performance by a team like this for a long time… and on top of that they had the bounce of the ball. The Kiwis were always going to win, but I don’t think the score is a fair reflection of the talent of the Aussie outfit. The Kiwis got out to a very good start, the Aussies played catch-up and threw everything at them, but then they would make a simple error (dropped ball) and the kiwis immediately converted it into points. The Aussies chased and chased, grew more and more tired, made more mistakes as a consequence of fatigue and were punished by the kiwis even further. The speed of the game was intense.
What stillmissed it has said is partly true, but I believe (in this instance) fatigue and desperation became a factor. The Forwards couldn’t keep in pods because they were exhausted chasing the game, (even the halfback was late to the rucks) the backs isolated themselves because they were trying to make the miracle play/run. The Aussie’s played valiantly, but the Kiwis were on song. It was beautiful to watch.
I watched the Aussies play against SA and they were very impressive, the fact is these kiwis were just very good.
June 23rd 2010 @ 7:06am
counterruck said | June 23rd 2010 @ 7:06am | Report comment
good article. the influence of rugby league permeates everything in Australian rugby. There is a whole separate article that could be written on that point, and it also explains why Australia is sometimes out of step with the atitudes of the rest of the rugby world on certain aspects of the game.
The League influence was used to our advantage in the early days of professionalism but arguably is now more of a hindrance.
(Please no one interpret this as an attack on rugby league, not my point at all)
June 23rd 2010 @ 7:15am
stillmissit said | June 23rd 2010 @ 7:15am | Report comment
Hi Sam – I watched two games and what Wayne Smith says is true we have fast backs particularly the full back. We have a large front row and big 6’8″ locks. We did well to get there but as I said we rely on speed and fitness rather than being clinical at the breakdown or in our support play. The Baby Blacks killed us in the breakdown and we declined to commit more then 2 and occasionally 3 forwards to contest it. The counter argument that staying out of the breakdown makes for a hard defensive line to break is just not true and they ran through our forwards in the D with speed and support in spades.
We were dominated at scrum time by the BB’s who were smaller than us and there was hardly an area where we were not beaten comprehensively. I would have liked to watch the game against the South Africans to give you a more balanced answer but I didn’t see it.
It was a case of lose the breakdown and lose the game and the BB’s turned over our ball almost at will. I could not watch the last 15 mins and started to write this article.
June 23rd 2010 @ 7:54am
formeropenside said | June 23rd 2010 @ 7:54am | Report comment
Australian performance at the breakdown has been poor for about 10 years now; maybe more. Rucking appears optional, and counter-rucking too exotic to interest most players. Quick ball from a ruck is second only to a pop pass out of a tackle to a player already in support. Going forward in a ruck or maul means the opposition have to get back or be offside – and a defender already retreating is in two minds to begin with.
For too long basic forwards skills have been ignored (and dont start me on scrummaging, or picking a hooker who cant throw straight because he is “good around the park”.
I hadn’t connected this to rugby league before, but you could well be right stillmissit.
June 23rd 2010 @ 7:58am
JK said | June 23rd 2010 @ 7:58am | Report comment
Very interesting, I’d never thought of it that way, but come to think about it you make some valid points.
June 23rd 2010 @ 7:59am
Dingobob said | June 23rd 2010 @ 7:59am | Report comment
Having watched the game the loss seemed to be more about poor defence than anything, expecially one on one tackles. In this case I think Rugby could learn from League as it has done in the past with many Defensive coaches coming across the codes.
June 23rd 2010 @ 8:10am
stillmissit said | June 23rd 2010 @ 8:10am | Report comment
Dingobob: good point and agreed. Les Kiss did great things for the Waratahs and the league guy that McQueen brought in did the same with the Wallabies.
It struck me that RL players who came to Union tackled better in RL than they did in RU. Don’t know why, it is just an observation. Tackling is such an attitude thing maybe it is just unacceptable in League to miss one on ones and in Union it is just a great pity!
June 23rd 2010 @ 8:45am
TembaVJ said | June 23rd 2010 @ 8:45am | Report comment
I blame RL for the GFC, brain numbing game forced banks and broker to stuff it all up!
June 23rd 2010 @ 8:51am
TembaVJ said | June 23rd 2010 @ 8:51am | Report comment
Jumping from union to RL is like loosing one eye, you can still see but you have no depth perception. For RL player with 3D tvs watching the state of origin its like the 3D without the D.
Player playing RL from a young age lack vision, they have all the athletic ability of a union player but they lack the foresight to think 3-5 phases ahead. That’s why they make good wings, you wont find many playing 10 or 9.
Now before i get a lashing from the RL community who patrol these blogs, this does not count for all cases but 95% of them.
June 23rd 2010 @ 11:23am
Ken said | June 23rd 2010 @ 11:23am | Report comment
Yep Rugby League is for dumb bogans and Union is for fat snobs. Now that we’ve got that out of the way why don’t you let the adults keep talking