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:
“Animals used to provide a lowlife way to kill and get away with it, as they do still, but, more intriguingly, for some people they are an aperture through which wounds drain. The scapegoat of olden times, driven off for the bystanders’ sins, has become a tender thing, a running injury. There, running away ... is me: hurt it and you are hurting me.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“I think that carrying a baby inside of you is like running as fast as you can. It feels like finally letting go and filling yourself up to the widest limits.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)
“...give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 6:38.