The clean out is one of the hardest thing to teach young rugby players. Like tackling it is a confidence thing, they just don’t want to stick there head in and drive.
So the question is how do you build their confidence at the break down?
The trick is reducing the distance and padding all the bits that can hurt (i.e. the knees and elbows). The drill shown in these clips is a simple staged ruck situation. The tackle bag represents the tackled player on the ground, it’s needed for them to get used to stepping over the players on the ground.
The drill works as follows;
- Lay a tackle bag on the ground and place some cones under the edges to stop it from rolling around as they step over it.
- Set up some cones about a meter away from the bag on either side.
- Give the players on one side a crash pad and tell them to stand close to the tackle bag.
- Tell the players without the crash pads, their job is to drive over the tackle bag and push the crash pads away.
- On the coaches signal they attempt to clean out with leg drive
As the players understand the concept of the leg drive in the clean out, take the crash pads away and add a ball on one side of the tackle bag. Tell the players the team that can drive past the ball wins, make sure they don’t use their hands (one of the first things they will do when they start to loose).
Coaching points:
- Keep the head up to see where the opponent is
- Get low and drive up
- Make contact with the shoulders
- Take small steps to drive
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