“I was always taught to try and place the long at the ruck but most pro-teams don’t do this anymore. I mostly see teams presenting the ball like a “C” on the ground. Why is that?” – Dan H.
Most sides these days drill ball presentation as a regular enough part of their week. You’ve probably heard the term “fight on the ground” used quite a bit and what it essentially means is adding extra value to the ball once you hit the deck and making it easier for the halfback to sweep the ball away quickly.
The key things we want to promote on our ball presentation is reliability of possession and reliability of ball position.
We want to train how we play so the ball has to come back quickly and in a consistent position for the halfback to hit his targets. When we’re carrying up the middle of the field or into heavy enough traffic, this is particularly important. You have to consider it as a means to add time to your attack and take time from the opposition. Small gains lead to quicker ball so we want everything we do in contact – particularly on the floor – to be fast, fast, fast.
Here’s an example of the “C” presentation in a game scenario.
What do we notice about it? The shape on the ground is quicker to put in place than extending to a full long presentation and requires less “squeezing” of the ball on the floor. You take the contact, fight for as much ground as you can and then, once hitting the floor is inevitable, you angle to one side and produce the following shape on the ground.
It’s got advantages and drawbacks, as you might expect. This body shape has a wider “gate” for the opposition to counter-ruck through but, on the other hand, allows for wider/more binds on the carrier’s jersey for your ruck support players to brace against any opposition counters.
The lateral position of the ball is a key part too.
This ball is Ready To Pass without any adjustment from the scrumhalf. All he has to do is approach, grip and pass. Here’s another example of that style of presentation.
You’ll notice Stander “scooting” his arse towards the opposition when he’s on the floor, with the effect being that he shrugs his legs up towards him to make the “C”.
The reason for doing that are two-fold;
- It makes jackaling slightly more difficult if you can make contact with the opponent’s shin by unbalancing a weight-bearing leg.
- It makes any players lingering in the halfback passing lane post-tackle obvious to the referee.
The Long Presentation is used in different areas of the field, usually where there is more space to play with.
There is a narrower gate and a longer hindmost position offside line if the officials can be arsed enforcing it but, as a drawback, you have a narrower space to grip onto as a counter-rucker and you can really only support one player properly gripping over the tackled player.
You can get a rough approximation of the scenario here;
Because Stander is in more space, he has more time to get a long shape on the floor which, in theory at least, creates a long offside line that should help Munster attack on the next phase.
Remember, law 15.4 says;
Each team has an offside line that runs parallel to the goal line through the hindmost point of any ruck participant. If that point is on or behind the goal line, the offside line for that team is the goal line.
With the offside line properly applied, there would be at least three Ospreys offside here going on the hindmost position of Stander’s foot. Previously the law related to hindmost foot but that was changed to “hindmost position” and now applies to any ruck participant from either side.
Why are the Ospreys players pointing?
Because Holland appears to go off his feet – and thus voiding the ruck – for a split second. Why did that happen? He had a narrower target to build his ruck shape over. As I said – advantages and drawbacks.
There are two inherent slowdowns in this technique – the full swivel on the floor and the likelihood that you’re going to have a ball readjustment from the halfback, but if your ruck support is quick and the officials are on the ball you can win a few offside penalties on lazy defensive sets – that’s a big “if” though.
