By Prof
August 3 2006

The ninth report from the Quinssa Meet The Coaches Evening where Andy Friend and John Kingston talking about player size, decoy runners and running lines.

Q: Do you think rugby is all ‘bigger, faster, stronger’ or do you think there are more dynamics to take into account?

Andy Friend (AF): There’s an 85 kilo division down in Australia now so you don’t have to be that big to play in that one. But I think the game is becoming bigger, faster, stronger – the more time you have to prepare for it the bigger, stronger and faster you’re going to make yourself and now that we’ve got more full time professional strength coaches and players who spend a lot of time in the gym, a lot of time building themselves up, and as a race I think we’re getting bigger, the more we know about dieting. So I don’t think we’re going to get smaller. The key thing is that size is one thing but it’s what happens in the top three inches of your head that’s the most important thing and that will never change in any sport. Earlier we touched on sports psychologists and that’s a key thing to how players perform under pressure and what makes them tick.

 

Q: What are your views on the way that the All Blacks and Australia use decoy runners?

AF: From a Southern Hemisphere point of view I’ve got no problem with decoy runners as long as they run a good enough line that doesn’t impede you, if you get sucked in and feel like you’ve got to take him because he might be getting the football then that’s good play. I think it’s one thing that the Rugby League people have got right in the game. If the player runs a good line and stops and checks you then let it play on but if he runs into you and impedes you then that’s a different story. Back home we do a lot of work on decoy runners and we tend to cop a lot of flack for it but the referees are now thinking the same way we do and they let it play – if you take it out of the game then you’ll get a pretty bland game of football.

John Kingston (JK): It’s something I nag Andy about, I think far too often when you watch Harlequins, and you saw it last Saturday, the ball gets passed along the line and everyone is running the same line, no one is holding the defence running on a different angle where they can take the ball and change the angle of the attack. If you remember the Wales v New Zealand game when New Zealand won by 40 points a couple of weeks ago,  when you were all preparing for the sartorial splendours of Sedgley Park, Wales must have run more tail balls, as I call it, than (at my size) I’ve had hot dinners! It was unbelievable – they were run so badly that the All Black defence just kept pushing across and that’s the point that Andy’s making. I think more power to  them, if they are doing it legally and they are running genuine lines to hold defences then that’s excellent play – Exeter did it to us in the first ten minutes of the game here, if you remember they put the ball behind a guy who was running and it caused us a bit of consternation before we sorted ourselves out.