Lazy Runners, Obstruction
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I posted these in the match thread but wanted to discuss this tactic a bit further to understand what people's thoughts were. It appears to me that it is a tactic for players to run directly at defenders with no intention of taking the ball. By obstructing defenders or even taking them out it creates gaps for the player with the ball. It reminds me of NFL with players creating a line in front of the ball. I understand all teams do it, but it just doesn't feel like it's in the spirit of the game and feels like clear obstruction, taking players out without the ball. Thoughts?
The second French try was a clear move where the lock purposely runs directly at the defender and changes his line to obstruct the defender. The ball runner runs directly at the gap the lock has created.
And another example where players never retreated after a ruck, instead just stood in the way obstructing defenders. Another lazy runner purposely runs directly into Akira without the ball leading to a gap and subsequent penalty.
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We've had this discussion lots before. Refs will only ever call clear blocking within reach of a defender not visual blocking or positioning blocking.
There is another example in your pictures (lower left picture in the first sequence) of something that also goes unnoticed and that is players (usually forwards) well ahead of the ball drifting across and blocking the defending forwards.
I know that it isn't expected that they run backwards behind the passed ball before coming forward but when they deliberately block or slow it shits me. They should certainly not be allowed to run forward ahead of the ball. You get penalised if you do it in other phases so why not in general play? -
@crucial said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
I know that it isn't expected that they run backwards behind the passed ball before coming forward but when they deliberately block or slow it shits me. They should certainly not be allowed to run forward ahead of the ball. You get penalised if you do it in other phases so why not in general play?
To open gaps. Get in front of someone, slow down, disrupt the defence. It's shit, but it's rugby.
And that's kinda the point around obstruction; play to the ref and laws as they are interpreted. Same as mauls a few years ago - if we just invested in maul dominance, and scored off them regularly, laws would get changed. We shoulnd't grizzle, we should just exploit the loopholes
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@chimoaus said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@nzzp well it worked perfectly for the French so clearly their coaching staff are playing to the rules and doing everything they can to exploit defences. Guess the onus is on us to do it better.
ah, the Crusaders were experts at this more than a decade ago.
It's not a case of "this is something we don't do, we should do it" we have, and do, do it
It's a case that our attacking formation doesn't lend itself to this play because we play flat as fuck.
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@mariner4life we dont do it well enough thou as that would help counter the rush defense, if you can legitimately cause some confusion as to where the ball is going we might not get swamped with two tacklers and a jackal
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@kiwiwomble said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@mariner4life we dont do it well enough thou as that would help counter the rush defense, if you can legitimately cause some confusion as to where the ball is going we might not get swamped with two tacklers and a jackal
players in motion? What a novel idea.
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@mariner4life said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@kiwiwomble said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@mariner4life we dont do it well enough thou as that would help counter the rush defense, if you can legitimately cause some confusion as to where the ball is going we might not get swamped with two tacklers and a jackal
players in motion? What a novel idea.
This is probably what I noticed the most in the Irish and French games, they seem to play to a set structure, with everyone knowing the plays and their roles.
We are experts at playing what is in front of us and using our talent and skill to exploit that. The problem is when teams stick to their structure and employ good D we look clueless as our structures just aren't up to it. We seem to run out of ideas very quickly and put up the 50/50 bombs.
We almost need to move away from the counter attacking sevens style and move towards the very structured play of the NH teams. Once you get territory and build pressure then those skills become valuable.
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@mariner4life said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
ah, the Crusaders were experts at this more than a decade ago.
Or going back a little further, remember Woodward criticising Eddie Jones for this? In that instance I agreed with Woodward. However it's been part of the game for two decades now
On this particular game - I thought the French got their timing wrong on 2-3 occasions. Particularly when a ball carrier cut back. I think they should've been called for accidental offside at least twice.
But the ref missed it.. the refs miss lots of things in a game
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@chimoaus said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@mariner4life said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@kiwiwomble said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@mariner4life we dont do it well enough thou as that would help counter the rush defense, if you can legitimately cause some confusion as to where the ball is going we might not get swamped with two tacklers and a jackal
players in motion? What a novel idea.
This is probably what I noticed the most in the Irish and French games, they seem to play to a set structure, with everyone knowing the plays and their roles.
We are experts at playing what is in front of us and using our talent and skill to exploit that. The problem is when teams stick to their structure and employ good D we look clueless as our structures just aren't up to it. We seem to run out of ideas very quickly and put up the 50/50 bombs.
We almost need to move away from the counter attacking sevens style and move towards the very structured play of the NH teams. Once you get territory and build pressure then those skills become valuable.
i wonder what they actually do in training....we dont have "moves" like other teams...and we dont do a lot of the old school basics (passing and tackling) as has been mentioned
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@nta I'm curious to hear from someone who recently played and how much of this you train for. Does each player have a certain role to obstruct etc? Do you have a role to target specific players? What is the best way to defend against this tactic?
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@chimoaus said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@nta I'm curious to hear from someone who recently played and how much of this you train for. Does each player have a certain role to obstruct etc? Do you have a role to target specific players? What is the best way to defend against this tactic?
we train it at club level, not to obstruct a specific runner but for the passing to happen behind pods so its visually obscured, seed that doubt on where the ball is going, we also train to counter it, defenders running for the space behind the front attacking line as you can assume thats where something is going to happen
so to be clear, not trying to physically obstruct defenders
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@kiwiwomble said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@chimoaus said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@nta I'm curious to hear from someone who recently played and how much of this you train for. Does each player have a certain role to obstruct etc? Do you have a role to target specific players? What is the best way to defend against this tactic?
we train it at club level, not to obstruct a specific runner but for the passing to happen behind pods so its visually obscured, seed that doubt on where the ball is going, we also train to counter it, defenders running for the space behind the front attacking line as you can assume thats where something is going to happen
so to be clear, not trying to physically obstruct defenders
Thanks for that, I guess by the very nature of pods getting in the defensive line it will at times lead to obstructing defenders and perhaps this is what the coaches want.
The skill I assume is in confusing the defender and doing everything you can to "not obstruct" the defender whilst still obstructing them lol.
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@chimoaus yes, to some degree we're just trying to pick up the kind of players that only have eyes for the ball, those that cant anticipate where it going and run into those holes. So the dummy pods dont move, dont drift into the way of defenders, but if a defender only has eyes for the ball and runs into a stationary pod then all good
as i say we also train to defend it,
first defender on the halfback
second defender on the first receiver
third defender runs for the space behind the first receiver looking for a roaming fullback or blindside wing
forth defender goes for the second receiverand so on
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@chimoaus said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@nta I'm curious to hear from someone who recently played and how much of this you train for. Does each player have a certain role to obstruct etc? Do you have a role to target specific players? What is the best way to defend against this tactic?
I'm a prop. We don't worry about such nonsense
At our level it is mainly decoy runners well off the ball. The precision is different, but you get one player to come in at an angle to hold the defence, releasing it behind them to go wide per @Kiwiwomble 's post.
Setting up pods is a lot harder as a rule, because the chances of getting called for it are higher (more bodies = different picture for the ref), and if you turn it over you've got less resources to recover.
Additionally, a lot of our guys are league-trained so single decoy running is what they do best.
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@nta said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
Make it a black and white picture and assume the jerseys belong to anyone.
Been in the playbook of basically everyone since Brumbieleague.
Next.
Still shits me.
As someone pointed out above (@Crucial ?) it should be illegal to advance into the defensive line if you are in front of the ball
Difficult to write the law as i have no issue with forwards running a line to an anticipated breakdown (or up the fat man's track ... have no idea if that's still a thing ... )
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@booboo said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
@nta said in Lazy Runners, Obstruction:
Make it a black and white picture and assume the jerseys belong to anyone.
Been in the playbook of basically everyone since Brumbieleague.
Next.
Still shits me.
As someone pointed out above (@Crucial ?) it should be illegal to advance into the defensive line if you are in front of the ball
Difficult to write the law as i have no issue with forwards running a line to an anticipated breakdown (or up the fat man's track ... have no idea if that's still a thing ... )
Don't league know how to rule against this?
