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Nick It is easiest to practise the miss pass in a line - see attached practice. The key though is to get your players to understand when a miss pass is most effective. To develop this understanding perhaps you could get your players to play 3 v 2 in small grids and encourage players to make miss passes (reward with extra points)to put teammates in for a try. The key points are that the missed player in the middle calls for the ball and angles their run away from where the pass is going.
I hope this helps Simon
Nick, sorry, blowing my own trumpet time; look up the Technical Journal in the RFU website, archives Autumn 2006 (I think - but it is definitely 2006), and there is a series of practices for passing, including the one you need. Basically, I put 3 attackers in a line facing 2 tackle bags fairly close together. They represent the "best tacklers in the world (thereby answering the question "Why do that pass)," and the aim is for Player 1 to pass to Player 3 so that Player 3 receives the ball in the space outside the second bag. In my article, I have 5 in a line with 4 bags (2 then 2), so that Player 1 and Player 3 both have to try the miss pass. Start at jogging speed, and when the players get good, introduce a speed contest between the sets of players in some way. I made the players go through 5 times changing positions with each run so that they all played in every position, and timed the 5 runs. Reward for the fastest team. Dropped passes/any other miss voided the run. Do it left and right.
in more ways than one
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Your players can pass beautifully in a warm-up grid. Then a defender closes, their lungs are burning, and the ball goes to ground. Here is how to build catch-pass skills that hold up when it matters.
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