SO IF you are reading this, it’s fair to assume you’ve heard about the lowering of the tackle height in the community game. If not, where have you been? But fear not, either way you’ve come to the right place.
Here at Rugby World, we do the hard work for you, cutting through the noise to get to the crux of what is happening, why it has and what it means for you amateur players and coaches.
To do that we have enlisted the help of Scotland’s Richie Gray. No, not that one. Toulon’s skills/contact collision specialist who has held similar roles with Lyon, Montpellier, Fiji and South Africa. Gray works with World Rugby and has even written Tackle Ready, part of the coach education, breaking the tackle down into five key areas. It’s one of three key free training modules designed to support both players and coaches with the new law trials, as well as with technique more generally.
Gray is something of a pioneer when it comes to collision sports, clocking on to the fact that there were too many injuries being sustained, particularly in training, when a rugby union coach at his local side Gala. That led him to create bespoke training aids to replace full-contact sessions and in 2010 Gray, who works in the NFL too, founded GSI Performance.
“There were too many guys getting injured in and around the tackle and for me, the breakdown, but back then it was just seen as a tough session, so it was (looked
