Rugby World Cup 2015 - Hookers

In honour of the rugby World Cup, I thought I’d do a short series on the visual requirements for some of the different positions starting with the hooker.

When people talk of visual requirements, they usually refer to the visual requirements of the player - things like having good visual acuity and peripheral vision. I tend to approach it another way, by looking at the visual requirements of the sport itself.

For a hooker, one of the main requirements is to be able to throw a ball into a lineout in such a way that it can be caught by the intended player on your side, and not intercepted by the opponents. Of course, it’s not always the hooker’s fault when this doesn’t happen, as it’s very much a team effort between thrower, lifters and catcher, and also depends on the ability of the opposition to defend.

One of the main difficulties for hookers is that they don’t actually have a target to aim for. They’re aiming for a space above the catchers head. But if it’s a throw towards the back of the line out, they often have to throw the ball in a parabola to evade the opposition’s catcher in the middle. If that’s someone like Devin Toner, who’s nearly seven feet tall before he’s lifted, that’s not an easy task.

You can get hookers to practise their throwing by aiming at a mark on a post, and that would certainly be better than nothing. But the best way to practise getting the correct trajectory for deeper throws would be to throw the ball through a hoop. The hoop would be set at the height of the opposition’s front jumpers.

I’ve seen this done with a tyre suspended from the cross bar. But ideally you’d want this to be hoop on an adjustable stand, and you’d want a second one set for the height of your tail catcher. The hooker then practises getting the ball through both hoops. This can be done as an individual practice, just with one set of forwards, and as fully contested lineouts.

The hooker should also spend some time throwing whilst blindfolded, giving the brain a chance to concentrate on the kinaesthetic (muscle) feedback with each throw. The position of the hands holding the ball, especially the little finger, must be identical each time (see earlier blogs).

The visual requirements of hooking the ball are minimal, certainly at elite level, because there’s hardly any hooking these days. Put-ins are still as straight as a dog’s hind leg, so it’s more important to push than to hook the ball. I read that Sean Fitzpatrick used to practice with his eyes closed, so he could still hook the ball even if he couldn’t see it because he was pushed out of position by the opposition scrum. Unless or until referees insist on the put-in being straight, I can’t see many people practising that today.

David Donner

Rugby Line Out

The importance of an accurate line-out throw was highlighted when Dylan Hartley’s overthrow led to an Australian try in the recent international.

One of the best ways of practising the line-out throw is to suspend a ball from the crossbar at the required height. This gives the hooker a target to aim for, and the catchers have to catch the thrown-in, as opposed to the suspended ball. When line-outs are contested, the hooker has to learn to give the ball the correct flight to beat the front jumpers. When the suspended ball is removed, the hooker has to imagine that there’s a ball there to aim at.

The importance of holding the ball in a consistent fashion has been demonstrated in research on basketball free throws.

Aglioti et al (2008) tested 10 elite professional players, 5 sports journalists, 5 sports coaches and 10 students who were complete novices. They were shown video clips of different lengths of a professional player taking free throws, and had to predict whether or not the throws were successful. They found that the professional players were able to predict significantly more successfully when the clips were stopped at the point when the ball left the hand. The other groups needed to see the trajectory of the ball after release before they could make accurate predictions.

Researchers then used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to assess activity in the brain when the participants were watching the video clips. They found that both expert players and watchers had increased activity in the parts of their brain concerned with movement when they watched video clips of free throws, as opposed to when they watched static pictures or videos of footballers taking a penalty. Novices did not show this higher level of brain activity.

The really interesting bit was when the researchers studied the brain activity of elite players when they watched a “miss”. At the moment the ball was released from the hand, there was a spike in activity in the area of the brain that controls a muscle in the little finger called the abductor digiti minimi. This muscle pulls the little finger away from the body’s midline.

The researchers also looked at the angles formed by the little finger, wrist and knee joints during free throws. At the point when the ball was released, when the elite players watching got their vital information, the only difference between shots that were accurate and those that missed was the little finger angle.

So, hookers note: if your little finger is in the wrong position at the moment the ball is released, your throw is likely to be off target.

David Donner