This is a lesson on how to mark more effectively.
When you are playing a basic rule of thumb would be
to picture the field with a rugby ball painted on it
with its tips in either goal as depicted in the diagram.
Your aim is to own the inside of the field.
I E the space of the rugby ball,
and to put the opposition on the outside of the field,
as this makes you quicker on the field,
as you have less distance to travel.
A more sophisticated way of looking at this information.
And one that probably works more practically is to imagine the
rugby ball painted with one of its tips in the goal
mouth and the other on the ball,
wherever it is on the field.
And one can see from the diagram how effective this is
both in attack and defense.
In this example,
if the blue attacker hits the ball towards goal A,
and as teammates have managed to clear the rugby ball,
then the yellow team cannot defend.
And if the reverse was true and yellow were attacking goal
A, then blue would be able to prevent them doing this.
The player in Blue on the gray horse is standing at
one in the line out.
When the ball goes through to the back of the line
out, she correctly ends up playing back.
However, she makes one crucial mistake.
She lets her opponent get her on her inside and push
her to the edge of the field so that the goals
are unprotected from a red attack.
The next scene is almost a replica of the previous one,
except that this time the player on the gray makes the
correct move and gets onto the inside of her opposition.
One can see as a consequence of this,
that the REd cannot attack,
but also when the Blue's regain possession,
because she is on the inside,
she is much quicker back into the attack,
as she has the shortest route to travel.
Let's look at the previous scene diagrammatically.
If the blue can get on the inside and own the
proverbial rugby ball,
then if she is attacking goal A red cannot defend,
if she is beaten on the outside.
And if blue is defending goal A red cannot attack again
because she's on the outside.
So in attack or defense owning the inside of the field
and putting your opponent on the outside is the correct move.
Also, as we saw in the last scene,
if her team regained position,
she is then much quicker back into the attack because she's
on the inside.
Take a look at this next scene and you will see
how important the high goalers think owning the inside of the
field is.
Here you can see some action and there you will see
the white player knows that he's beaten and he will immediately
get out of that ride off and try and get back
on the inside of the black player,
which he does very successfully,
takes them out,
and is thus able to come back to goal and attack
the goals.
If white had stayed in that ride off and stayed on
the outside of the field,
black would have always had the upper hand.
In this next scene you can see a backline knock-in from
the blue team.
The blue number two on the gray horse runs into space
left and the back hits a neck shot to that player.
The blue number one should never be drawn into following on
the near side of the red number one,
because he will then always be on the outside of play.
What he should do is let the red number one follow
the blue number two for a short distance,
and then get round on his inside.
You can see however that the blue number one does exactly
the wrong thing as does the blue number three.
And both of them are now on the outside of the
player. Diagrammatically then what has happened is this,
is that the number two blue who incidentally has again,
ended up playing one and is attacking.
So you can see the interchange of players here has had
to really try and play really quickly to get around her
opposing red,
to get to goal A.
And you can see that both the three and the one
behind her have all been beaten and pushed to the edge
of the field.
So the reds have done a very good job of protecting
their goals here.
Here's an example of the blue number three,
going for a low percentage hook with no protection for the
goals he misses this hook,
and it ends up with the white team scoring a goal
at the other end of the field.
The right play would have been to give away the low
percentage play and get on the white players inside.
Effectively, he would have lost this one play,
but beaten the white on the next play and been able
to play a backhand into the goal and kept the blue
attack rolling.
So as a rule of thumb,
give away one low percentage play and make sure that you
are dominant in the second play.
If you try to make the low percentage play and are
late on it,
you give away many succeeding plays.
Here's the result of that indiscretion.
You can see the white is now free.
The blue player is then marked out of the equation,
and white is able to go the length of the field
and score goal.