Touch rugby is the best route into Asia

Most of the people who do the driving at our touch sessions are speedy as in they can keep the pressure on with driving and dumping the ball but don't see to want to sidestep or change direction and don't seem to have the speed of say a winger who is attacking the line at pace yet a fingernail touch from the opposite defender can put stop to that,What we seem to play is like a touch version of the English Rugby Union team lol. Maybe Tag Rugby is the one for me but haven't tryed it.

I agree with you completely. No one tries anything in competitive touch. the main tactic is speed (of running and playing the ball) and catching out the slow defenders. Very boring and unimaginative and favours small, speedy halfback-types.

Shahsan i starting to hate competive Touch Rugby as it's pretty boring (mind you it's hard work)as it's always seem to be centred around the same players doing pick up's and drives for the first 3/4 touches and the winger's on the right never seem to get the ball,while Social Touch as in just playing it at training is much more fun as players get the chance to express themselves ball in hand.

That is true to a certain extent, in the sense that Asian teams play rugby but have never and will never understand the skullduggery that goes with it, ie the off-the-ball punching, gouging, squrrel grabbing etc. I spoke to some Aussie and international refs who officiated at the RWC 1999 qualifiers and they said Asian teams were a pleasure to referee because you only had to worry about laws being broken: there was very little thuggery and off the ball shenangians to deal with; no one was roughing up or testing anyone to see what they were made of, or getting square or intimidating them. It has nothing to do with guts, as Asians have demonstarted their bravery and stoutness in countless battlefields throughout history. It is just that rugby is just a sport and not a test of manliness as it is practically everywhere else. In tersm of skill, ask anyone who has played in Asia and they will say that some of the best players in each country can hold their own in any company -- the problem is that there is not enough of them, and there is no critical mass of quality players. And the forward are generally not big enough.

Both league and union types play touch, with exactly the same rules etc, but the WAY they play it is very different. The style you see at touch competitions is very close to rugby league ie take the ball up, put it down, next man comes etc, Very regimented, very sharp and very fast. The gaps tend to come from catching teams with bad alignments and spotting the slow players in defence. But when union players play touch, there is more empahsis on doing loops, switches, drawing men, etc, something more akin to the 15-a-side game. I think the union style is more fun and interesting to play, but the league style is much more effective in touch competitions and much harder to defend against.

Tag rugby is a form of touch that uses velco tags -- http://www.tagrugby.co.uk/pages/why-play-tag-rugby

Yes but I did only say "many" (some) Asians and I only say it because they are unfamiliar with the rugby codes and tackling. As I say, it's a familiarity thing and your example of Japanese players being exposed at a relatively early age is a good example of that.

OJ Without trying to start an argument .. but you keep calling it tag rugby i.e. the rugby variation of touch I assume you mean... Coming from Football where we welcome and embrace all kinds of variant's ... celebrate them encourage them .. like indoor football five a side played on a wooden floor about the size of a basketball court, ball is roughly half the size is flat... rebounds off the walls are play on so almost no outs .... beach football bear feet on sand, small field goals very small etc... Why take the simplest game you can imagine in touch and feel the need to have one called tag and introduce new rules making it a bit more complex... and then keep going on about it... I happen to back on to a rugby ground ... and often join a in a game of touch... and when teams train they play touch... sometimes buses arrive with men in suits and guys in uniforms with tags and it called Waller Tag... (hope I got that right in name) .. I cannot understand why RU & RL folk argue so much and are so petty ... when the games are so similar in many ways... far more similar than football variants...(Just for the record I played both RL & RU at reasonable senior levels)

they have lots of union-esc variations. they usually include the two nearest men to the tackled player doing a pushup or something to that end. it really saps the fun out of it.

Dave, I seen you on another forum stating how old you are, the same age as me, how in the world were you playing anything in the early 70's?

All this "Asians don't like to tackle each other" stuff is a stereotype. I don't know about other parts of Asia but in Japan they only start playing rugby in junior high school, so the benefit of tag rugby is getting kids involved at a younger age.

I agree that touch would be a great introduction to other variants of rugby. It gets players used to handling the oval ball and learning passing, catching and running skills. After all, passing an oval ball backwards is as foreign to some as me passing a sherrin AFL style. Once players get the feel of those skills then the natural progression is to introduce more specialized skills like tackling. Again, for many Asian people, tackling is not natural for them but in my experience, it's usually a familiarity and confidence thing once players realize it's technique rather than total brute force alone.

JohnB I like that two ball touch... Also to the comment someone made way back... the Mods added Rugby into the title I just called it touch... Mintox your comments concerning whether touch is to different to rugby ... my through process is in Asia there could be a much greater interest in rugby if people played touch... while it may not include rucks / mauls/ scrums/ kicking / line outs etc .. it does introduce introduce the idea of a straight line V a straight line and moving the ball with hand movements in a backward motion... side steps, angle running, drawing a man etc... It is very easy to explain ... if you try and sell the 15 a side game IMO it is to hard a sell ... I have been to test matches and the ref blows a free at a scrum and no one has any idea why ... and this is a rugby crowd ... try and explain how coming in side on in a maul is wrong this time but OK the next maul... Touch introduces rugby and like football is very easy to understand, play and by and large is non contact sport which helps in Asia.

Touch is a good introduction to some (not all) of the basic skills of rugby, particularly in places which have little or no prior knowledge of rugby. Makes a lot of sense to start with touch, before adding in the elements of rugby, whether you're in Asia, or here (and essentially that is what happens here). Touch then can either be a competitive sport in itself, or continue to be used as training for rugby (or of course league). As a training tool, nothing to stop you from changing the rules - variants I've used (in Asia as it happens) include "2 ball" touch (a bit difficult to explain, but here goes: each team has a ball; at the start, the defenders leave their ball in the middle of the ground, and play goes on with the attackers' ball; when the attackers drop the ball, or on 6 if you play it that way, the attackers' ball is left at the place where it is dropped/the 6th touch is made, and play immediately proceeds with the defenders' ball from where that ball was last left. On a score, the attackers' ball is brought back to halfway, left there, and play starts with the defenders' ball from there. In addition to regular positional, running and passing skills of touch, this gets people to think, and to realign and adjust, and has an added fitness element); "drop off" touch (a defender who makes a touch must run back past a cone in the centre of the tryline being defended before the defender can be involved in play again. This has an obvious fitness element, but also requires defenders to talk and adjust, and encourages attackers to look for overlaps); specified players must be the dummy half and first receiver (good training for numbers 9 and 10); "hit up" touch - the first (or first two or three) touches must be hit ups, with the attacker wrapped up (more a tackle than a touch). Each of those variations is fun to play, and each of them can be varied further by playing with unlimited touches, or requiring 2-handed touches. And each of them is very useful for rugby, or progressing to rugby in my view!

I've seen the Aussie cricketers playing it during training. Obviously is was designed by cricketers to keep fit during the off season... ... who cares where it came from (not a having a go at you Hutch, just happend to click reply to your comment). I've played touch with many guys of south East asian orgin and they make great touch players. Quick off the mark, great hands and killer steps (very Benji-esque). If they can find guys of similar ability with a bit more size they will have great 7s players... a bit of a challenge to move to 15s. Thats why I thinks JON's idea of a Asia pacific 7s tournament is a great idea for growth in the region.

Let me assure you Chris we were playing in a full competition over summer of touch rugby in Auckland in the early 70's. It was unlimited touch and played by seven players each side.

I was under the impression that there were two types, there was whats called "touch footy" which is the league based derivative with direct lineage and a touch rugby which is basically a training drill for rugby..

Wayne Carey Do yourself a favour and look up " Rugby frowing rapidly in Asia". I think you'll find your assumption is incorrect.

Touch started in Australia in the early 1960s as a social or "park" game and as a training technique for rugby league. It was not then viewed as a sport in its own right. It was formalised into a sport proper by the "Founders of Touch", Bob Dyke and Ray Vawdon of the South Sydney Junior Rugby League Club. On 13 July 1968 the "South Sydney Touch Football Club" was formed and the sport of Touch Football was born. The first official game of Touch was played in late 1968 and the first official competition, organised by Dyke & Vawdon, was held at Snape Park, Sydney in 1969. From these humble beginnings the game quickly became a fully regulated and codified sport. It was first played in Brisbane in 1972 and by 1973 there were representative games[2]. It had spread to New Zealand by 1975

Do you remember getting six touches? Pure concidence?