key tactics to win the play of the ball area in the NRC final

strategic options!

1. bemoan the ref for not speeding it up ie like the hx v fev match
2. everyone count the time it takes and shout loudly
3. " play dead " on our play of the ball to take even longer
4. Discuss the issue pre match with the RL refs controller
5. Get a ref who actually does the job of policing the play the ball area.

Discuss! .......... Mine is option 5 and everything is solved. If that fails its up to us at 2 above!!

What I really dont want to watch is a dour "wrestling"match that seems to be creeping back into our game . I would far rather win or loose an exciting game than one with defences nulifying any flair or movement. Lets hope for an open game with a good 10 yards for both teams and I think the two teams can put on a cracker to promote Campionship rugby.

I have been watching the game again.

I know that your coach wasn't very happy but what is it that he and you fans were not happy about
From what I can see the first man goes in to cover the ball to stop the off load Second man goes in to help with the tackle in puts the attacking player into a backward movement Third man goes low knocks opposition onto has back on the floor In my opinion this is a very controlling way to beat a team and the tackle is only complete when the oposition player is on the floor The question is a what point do people think the player tackled to play the ball

Stop worrying about tactics it'll be a great final..Fax need to concentrate how they are going to play; Two great sides anyone can win it on the day;

The player is deemed tackled when no further progress is being made. He doesn't have to be on the floor; he may be called tackled while upright. I think most people, no matter where their loyalties lie, feel frustration at the amount of time it takes for tacklers to release the tackled player once the referee has called 'held'. The laws clearly state that the tackled player must be released immediately once 'held' has been called, but this is rarely the case at any level as all teams try to take advantage. All teams do it. It often appears that some teams seem to get away with it more than others, but is this just blinkered loyalty? Is it that referees have individual interpretations? Who knows? What is clearly apparent, though, is that it should be cleaned up.

I think we all look at this through one eye.

I watched the Fev/'fax game on TV and thought that 'fax were taking far too long releasing after the tackle and I thought the ref was letting you get away with it far too often.

When I watched again, without the stress of not knowing what the result would be, both teams were pretty even in the time taken to release the tackled player.

Dave Woods on Prem sports summed it up well.

"you push the ball running up in 2's and varying the play and the chances of quick plays become easier, you go one out and you become dominated!"

simple. We must wise up in the early plays and become less predictable.

Fev's enthusiasm in defence was 50% more than ours, thats what won them the game.

6. dont let 5 an 4 see 1, 2 an 3

JT you have hit the nail on the head commenting on the number of players on the defending side that get involved in the tackle.
I hate the aligator wrestling type rugby but I don't think this is what Fev are doing.

When it is a 1 on 1 it is more obvious when the tackle is complete with the tackler being told to release faster or risk being penalised.

When you get as many as 3 defenders tackling in sides like Fev have coming in often they dominate the tackle and push the guy in possesion back, when this happens other players on the attacking side come in to stop the further loss of ground.

This means that there can be up to as many as 4 or 5 players involved.

This is perfectly legal and is built on a very fast advancing line speed that keeps coming into the tackle instead of taking 2 or 3 steps, stopping and then waiting for the impact.

The effect is it takes longer from the intial impact until the ball is played because of the amount of players involved and have to release and disengage.
This why the ref usually allows more time for all the players involved to do this.

This one big area where Fax need to improve upon because our line speed is often slow which takes the 2 or 3 steps forward and then stops and waits.

This is nowhere near as effective because they are static at the time of the collision whereas the attacker is dynamic, the 1 attacker is not dominated as much and usually makes more ground or even breaks the tackle and is one of the reasons we miss a good number of tackles during most games.

Anyside that gets the numbers moving into the tackle will have a much stronger defense and as the saying goes win more games on the back of it.

Some very good comments above . I think the line speed of Halifax is probably the key on the day for us combined with some dummy runners .

The matches where we struggled this year(ie Swinton away 1st half) are when we have sat back and waited for the opposition , we then get dominated in games. Up the line speed like Fev have done to very good effect recently and you start to pressurise the opposition.

Still think the choice and style of ref will have a large say on the outcome of what type of match we will be watching. Consistency and a firm control around PTB so teams know early on how its going to be. That rules out a few of the refs we have had this year.....away at Batley springs to mind!!!!

Or just get our attacking and defending in-tackle technique right...

I might just point out that at sheffield you were crucified in the 1st half because 1) your line speed was crap and 2) a quick ptb from sheffield kept opening fax up.

Come the 2nd half. Well apart from the obvious roll Fax forrads got into, the Fax defence was very "Fevesk" in it's deployment. Successfully holding down in the tackle just long enough to delay the PTB and get the defensive line set successfully nullifying any threat from Sheffield.

Now, I obviously can't speak for all fax fans but I would wager more than 90% of Fax fans would be quite happy to see that type of holding down and playing the ref that well - and coming away with a win compared with trying to play a fast open game and losing???

Fev (at the mo) are probably the most effective at the league at that aspect of the game. Why wouldn't you want to see it negated??
Me? Well I'm quite happy to let Daryl do what he thinks needs to be done and I'll just cheer us on while the lads execute that game plan - however it looks.

Exactly Haighy,which means moving up quick into position and getting your shoulder in and not standing off waiting and then being reduced to this none effective finger grabbing as they step round you when you are off balance.
Then we see out of frustration the 1 man exocet attempts such as Makka puts in,very entertaining and effective when they come off but most of the time they don't which leaves an even bigger hole for them to run into.

Coupled with this you need a good kicking game to back up your exit sets especialy against the 3 man tackle routines that we have mentioned other wise you can't get out of your own half.
It's another area where we need to improve to gain some field position and take the pressure off when we are running it out from our own line on the exit sets.

The 3 man tackle routines are a very effective stratergy that are used in Aussie land and were introduced to counter another stratergy from down under which was to target 1 individual in the defensive line multiple times in the same set the result being wear him out, miss a tackle and go through the hole.
To stop that they get a tighter defense, get more in the tackle to stop any 1 defender from being isolated.

It will be very interesting to see if KH can come up with a game plan to counteract it because having basically told the oppostion what frustrates the hell out of us he will need to do because they aren't going to stop.

oh absolutely. Why would we?

No reason at all Robin, in fact I think others will follow!!

A bit daft confirming to the oposition a weakness though mate on our part me thinks