Simple drills work, even for the best
One of England's best forwards tells us what drill helped regain his attacking prowess.
Courtney Lawes is acknowledged as one of England’s finest forwards.
Over the years, he has reinvented himself from a hard-hitting second-row into an all-court player, equally happy knocking over attackers as carrying the ball.
When Eddie Jones became the new England coach, Lawes realised that, to regain his place, he would have to improve his ball-carrying.
Early in his career, this was a feature of his game. But he had lost confidence and instead focused on his defensive and lineout skills.
This story was told in the 'For The Love Of Rugby' podcast, with Ben Youngs and Dan Cole.
I’ve been an avid listener as these two experienced England internationals and Leicester Tigers team-mates share insights in all aspects of the game. There’s a lot of coaching gold in there, too.
The episode with Lawes is no exception. His explanation of what he did to become a better player is applicable across all levels.
However, before you can put yourself under pressure to catch and evade, Lawes suggests you need to be confident in your movement.
In the podcast, he describes how he upskilled his footwork.
Unsurprisingly, it was through plenty of repetition.
The core exercise saw a scrum-half run and pass, or just pass as if moving the ball away from the side of the ruck. Lawes would start opposite a goalpost, run forward, then receive the ball, moving to the left or right of the post.
As he explains, part of the exercise was getting used to catching on the run, which seems a fundamental level of complexity but is still key to execute.
Next, the fact that the goalpost doesn’t move left or right, or even come forward, suggests the level of representativeness is low.
However, before you can put yourself under pressure to catch and evade, Lawes suggests you need to be confident in your movement.
It is certainly not the only exercise he did. The repetitions that led to reinforcement made him more confident about exploring it in more dynamic situations.
Anyone who has seen how well he has carried the ball for England and Northampton would agree that he is a very potent weapon.