Contact Scenarios - HS and A with Warren Gatland

Awesome…. very clear and precise

Decent drills with excellent points but shouldn’t be used after age 11. You could achieve the same goals in a mini game that would include more decision making and conditioning.

Brilliant for giving players options and so making it difficult for the defence to anticipate your attack game in contact. Loved it. Coaching it this Sunday!

Great session – its always young guys in your videos, does the work for older players too or do you adapt?

Good video, but I’d be careful nowadays coaching the roll on the floor to buy time. I found (might just be this season in NZ) that refs are not liking the roll anymore. I’ve found coaching ‘score the try, wriggle wriggle, long place’ is a better option. The almost commando crawl on the floor, allows for that extra second by making it hard for a jackal to get at the ball.

Excellent, thank you.

excellent easy to follow video, buy that time for your support!

Muy buen video y enseña muy bien la tecnica

Dominate the breakdown awesome video.

I really liked the fall and roll into the defenders legs technique for giving our support a bit more time to get to the runner and drive over, securing ball

excellent stuff simple and effective

Found the rolling tip very interesting. Will definitely give it a go.

With the fend I was always taught that it is like a punch. Extend and retract. If you hold it out as long as demonstrated in this video, it can be used as a lever to pull a attacker down. Surely hit and spin- you should spin off the first bag- get to the edge and then and be low into the next one. Also on the fall and roll- they are all falling in the horse shoe position- a wider gate- surely they should fall in the I position North to South to narrow the gate.

I get his point about keeping defenders in two minds, but I don’t like the spin before contact. For kids especially, don’t want them exposing their backs to a big hit. He might have expanded upon the point made about there being no space and targeting one of two defenders rather than trying shooting the gap (and risk being held up). A brief stutter and then power step to the outside of one will put a ball carrier in a stronger position to go through / get around. Tough to practice when holding shields, though. A bump and spin OUT of contact would be a good tool to have as well. Liked the regular emphasis on footwork, though, and that it was done with live opposition. Nothing against ladder work, etc. but feel that it’s important for players to develop evasive / powerful footwork by reacting naturally to a live defender and in realistic space.