Rugby and Sports Vision

Few sports demonstrate the interaction between vision and action better than rugby. And rarely has this been better highlighted than in England’s second try against Australia at Twickenham recently.

When Ben Youngs had the opportunity to clear the ball into touch from his own try line, he realised that Quade Cooper had over-committed himself. Instead of passing the ball immediately, Courtney Lawes drew the tackler first. Chris Ashton initially thought of going outside Drew Mitchell, but realised that the Australian was backing off, so cut infield to score under the posts.

These were split-second decisions made on analysis of the defender’s body position, as well as awareness of the positions of support attackers. There’s no time to think, which means that these decisions have to be made instinctively. And the only way to achieve that is through hours and hours of relevant practice.

Yet so much rugby coaching concentrates on teaching the skills in isolation. How much time is spent learning to pass the ball without any opposition? How many second-row forwards are given the opportunity to learn the skill of timing a pass from reading the defender’s body position, as opposed to always running with their head down? It’s perhaps no coincidence that Lawes, like Simon Shaw, came late to rugby. Both of them learned their ball-handling and spatial awareness skills though basketball and other sports they played as youngsters.

These skills can be, and probably need to be, learned from a young age. Playground games of tag, and other park or street games are an ideal start. They’re fun, largely unstructured, and have most of the required elements. Small-sided rugby games do a similar job.

When Courtney Lawes was young he used to accompany his dad to martial arts training, and judo, in particular is really useful for learning how to tackle, and be tackled, without being injured. A prime example is Thierry Dusautoir, yet another forward who didn’t take up rugby until in his teens, yet had been doing judo since the age of 4. When France defeated New Zealand in the World Cup quarter-final in 2007, Dusautoir made 38 tackles. That was more than the entire All Blacks team.

There are two areas where the visual requirement is largely an aiming skill: line-outs and place-kicking. So these shall have blogs of their own.

David Donner