DIY rugby

Tomorrow is our last training this year. Winter sessions at Katedralskolan haven't been well visited but enough to play some touch and get sweaty. One rookie even said training with few people was preferable, no need to disturb a big bunch of people with basic questions and consistently dropping the ball. I think in general these touch sessions have been helpful for new people to practise some easy ball handling and staying onside - but some more pedagogic than others.

A question has arisen whether our men's team actually has an outspoken game plan or if Uppsala simply favours improvisation? Considering the large number of players practising DIY rugby I'd say the latter is more probable. A fair few people seem to think there's no point in passing the ball, which is fair enough - we all love the ball. But they are also reluctant to take the contact. If their road is shut, they'll go left, stop, go backwards, go right and basically anywhere as long as they can. Do I really need to mention where the support is by this point? (Offside, confused and standing still is a good guess.)

Against an unorganised defense this still has a chance of working of course. We all know about players in different teams here that usually scores after a solo performance. However, my opinion is that no team can afford to field more than a couple of players with that kind of creativity. Not knowing where the hell your teammate is going will effectively prevent you from planning ahead your next phases. You can just hope to win the ruck, go from a stand still and play a slow ball. Again.

This sort of play during winter touch confuses all the new players. We tell them to go forward no matter what, but that isn't what they see. How will they learn if we don't follow our own instructions? Choose a running line and stick with it. Yeah right!