Running
Players can run with the ball in any direction they want. However they cannot use a teammate to obstruct the opposition. This occurs when they run around or into one of their own players and in the process prevent a defender from tackling them. Defending teams can also run anywhere they want as long as they do not start from an offside position. Offside lines are behind the last foot at a ruck, maul or tackle or five and ten metres back from scrums and lineouts respectively. If the ball is kicked, players from the kicking team cannot run forward until they have been passed by the kicker or someone behind the kicker.
Forwards tend to run straight and hard at the opposition, while the backs run at gaps between players or use speed and guile to run around them. In modern games of rugby some backs can be as big as forwards and attempt to break through the defensive line using brute force and many forwards possess the running skills of backs. Players run straight at the opposition with the aim of either breaking the tackle or getting forward momentum from which to set up another attack. If they are close to the try line they can drive in low to aid grounding the ball. Players can also try to break through tackles by spinning after making contact or by using the hand not carrying the ball to fend (push) off the defender.
A player could also try to get around a defender by stepping, swerving, or goose-stepping past them. To sidestep a defender, the attacking player takes a wide step in one direction while running forward and then shifts their body weight in the opposite direction. If successful the defender will be off balance, allowing the attacker to accelerate past. When swerving, an attacker runs straight at the defender, but before making contact accelerates and sways to the outside. Although similar to a side step, the swerve involves less sideways movement, but results in less loss of speed. The goose-step is a move made famous by David Campese and involves slowing down while running on the outside of the opponent, causing them to also slow, before accelerating away.
Read more about this topic: Rugby Union Gameplay
Famous quotes containing the word running:
“It was far in the sameness of the wood;
I was running with joy on the Demon’s trail,
Though I knew what I hunted was no true god.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The pleasure of jogging and running is rather like that of wearing a fur coat in Texas in August: the true joy comes in being able to take the damn thing off.”
—Joseph Epstein (b. 1937)
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)