World Rugby to revolutionise tackling from grass roots up
World Rugby is set to revolutionise coaching around the tackle area with the launch of a new initiative, called “Tackle Ready”, which is designed to dramatically improve technique at all levels of the game.
The move was announced during World Rugby’s Player Welfare and Laws Symposium yesterday in Paris, which has focused on how to continue reducing the number of head injuries and concussions per match. An average of 176 tackles are currently made per game at the professional level, with 50 per cent of all injuries and 76 per cent of concussions stemming from that area. However, tackle-related concussions dropped on average by 37 per cent during the World Cup compared to the previous year, following the introduction of the High Tackle Sanction Framework last summer. Tackles such as Dan Biggar's trysaving attempt on Samu Kerevi during the game between Wales and Australia at last year's World Cup, which resulted in Biggar suffering a concussion, illustrate the type of technique that World Rugby is seeking to remove. Under “Tackle Ready”, coaches at all levels will be given a fivestage framework around which to coach the tackle, broken down into tracking, preparation, connection, acceleration and finish. The content can be adapted to create a far simpler version at agegroup level, before adding more complex layers moving up towards the professional game.
Richie Gray, the former South Africa and Scotland assistant coach now working with Montpellier, has overseen the creation of the new programme, along with Jock Peggie, World Rugby’s general manager for training and education.
Filming is set to take place this month in Manchester in co-ordination with the Rugby Football Union to demonstrate the details that make up each of the five stages. The videos will then be relayed to World Rugby’s 2,500 licensed trainers and educators for face-to-face courses and also made available through an online learning module to every union free of charge.
“Going right down to the grassroots level of the sport, a lot of parents are worried about coaching the tackle area,” Gray said. “From the senior level point of view, sometimes you are so tied up with your defensive system – how much time do you genuinely spend on technique? I think we are really lacking skills technique coaches. We have phenomenal system coaches. But the technique and skills side, where does that fit in?
“We have spent the last few days going through statistics and percentages showing us where the challenges are. The biggest thing is how we are going to address it. And we do that through education.”
The five-stage programme has already been trialled in the United States over the past three years, with “outstanding” feedback from coaches, according to Gray. “First and foremost, they are not missing as many tackles. But also the rates of concussion at the high schools that have been using it have gone down.”
Peggie adds: “It is easier to coach a defensive system than it is to dig down on that individual technique, which also takes more time. With your system, you are coaching it to large groups of players. With the individual, everyone has their own needs. You have to work out you are going to do to intervene as a coach to make them better.
“Look at the clubs and international teams. They all have scrum coaches, line-out coaches, very few have specialist tackle coaches. I don’t think there is enough focus on it at the higher levels of the game, but also at the lower levels. It is the biggest area where coaches need support to be confident when it comes to coaching the tackle.”
Ian Foster, the New Zealand head coach attending the symposium in Paris, spoke positively about the programme’s potential.
“With ‘Tackle Ready’, that kind of breakdown of a skill, with a progression of drills that gets you to a higher level, I could see being used as a coaching resource at a whole lot of different levels,” he said. “It is not just the international level we are thinking about.”