Rugby is very good at teaching players where to stand.

Move here. Run this line. Pass there. Get into this shape.

But what happens when the opposition doesn’t behave as expected?

What happens when the defensive line breaks up, a gap appears or the player carrying the ball suddenly sees something that wasn’t in the original plan?

Veteran coach Alan Zondagh believes those moments are where some of the best rugby happens.

His coaching philosophy, explored in his new book Attack, Attack, Attack, is built around developing players who can recognise opportunities and react to them, rather than simply executing a pre-planned pattern.

And that starts with the individual.

Start with the player carrying the ball

Alan refers to the player with the ball as the “ballman”, and his approach begins by making that individual better.

That means improving their ability with the ball, but also their decision-making, their use of their eyes, feet and hands, and perhaps most importantly, their ability to put themselves in the right position.

Alan gives the example of Tim Horan, whose positioning at Saracens sometimes made it look as though he had an invisible “airbag” in front of him. If a defender was directly in front of him, Horan created just enough space to give himself time to do something with the ball.

That ability might not have been something Horan consciously thought about. Alan simply noticed it.

And that is central to his approach. Coaches need to notice what good players naturally do, understand why it works and then find ways of helping other players develop similar abilities.

Create chaos, then recognise it

The title of Alan’s book comes directly from something he spent years shouting at his players:

“Attack, attack, attack.”

But there is another phrase that sits alongside it:

“Create chaos.”

For Alan, attacking rugby requires disrupting the defence.

If defenders remain organised and connected, attacking opportunities are harder to find. The aim is therefore to create situations where the defensive structure begins to break down.

But creating chaos is only half the job. Players then need to recognise that the opportunity exists, and that is much harder to coach than simply teaching a set move.

Alan’s argument is that the players around the ballman need to learn to see the same thing that the ballman sees. There isn’t time during a match to communicate every decision.

As Alan puts it, there isn’t time to send a WhatsApp message explaining which direction you’re about to run. The reaction has to become instinctive.

Ask questions before you even attack

One of the most interesting ideas in the conversation is Alan’s belief that positioning itself can put pressure on a defence. Put players in unusual positions and defenders immediately have questions to answer.

Who is covering the wide player?

Should we move across?

Is there space in the middle?

Do we follow the numbers or hold our position?

The attack is effectively asking the defence questions before the ball has even been played. That is a very different way of thinking about attacking rugby.

Instead of simply asking, “What move are we going to run?”, the question becomes, “What can we make the defence think about?”

The problem with having a plan for everything

Alan doesn’t reject structure. In fact, he believes structure can give players confidence. But he is wary of allowing structure to replace individual development. This comes through particularly strongly in his discussion of coaching as an art.

Rather than writing a rigid six-week programme and following it regardless of what happens, Alan prefers to observe his players and decide what they need next. A session might reveal that something isn’t working. So the next session changes. A player might be falling behind. So the coach goes back and works on that skill again.

It is more like painting than following an instruction manual. You add something, step back, look at the picture and decide what needs to happen next.

LINKS

Contact Alan Zondagh at – AZ-Rugby.com