Hi! could anyone tell me what is "blitz defence in rugby, thanks in advance?

Question

Hi! could anyone tell me what is "blitz defence in rugby, thanks in advance?

Answer 1

A blitz defence is when the defencive line rushes up very fast to try and pressure the attacking team, this is used when trying to force the attacking team into an error or to try and tackle them behind the gain line, thus making them lose ground. Good fly half's read blitz defences and often respond to them by using a chipped kick over the defencive line as there is a lot of space there due to the opposing players running up so fast.

Hope this helps

CB

Answer 2

You have four types of defences..

The Umbrela defence..where the outside centre pushes up to stop miss passess and to cut out any options of passing wide...

The Drift Defence....where the player on the inside is relied on to take his man...this opens the possibility of attackers attacking the weaker  inside shoulder..this was used by cardiff blues for about three seasons...where they were humiliated...

The Blitz..that is essentially all about cutting down the space as soon as possible by basically sprinting into it.as one...in a line..giving the opposition no time at all..

And then there is the scramble defence when all of the above inevitable turns to shite...

Answer 3

The blitz defence was introduced to cut down the options of a First Five Eight, I think one of the Great First Fives (stand offs) who used dumby runners, time and space was Stephen Larkham (Australia).  Allowing him this much time to run at your standard defence also put a team in trouble.  On attack you can alter your back line to bring in the blind Side Winger.  However in Defence you needed to leave your winger on the Blind side just in case a play went down the bllind side.  With this in mind the attack team would alway have an extra number in the back line.  That along with the vision of great first five eights (Carlos, Larkham, Wilkonson)is quiet a deadly potion for any defence team.  The only way to neutralise this was to reintroduce the rushing defence.  Each defender marks up the inside person which will leave the attacking winger open.  This was the theory because a first five would have to throw a 40 odd metre pass to skip the 4 or 5 guys in between him.  This reduces the risk of a pass beating the player, it also produces a big thing called offensive-defence, where you are attacking without the ball.  You wouldn't really have this as your main defence at lower level rugby due to the skill difference.  Many great defences out there and personally i think the rushing defence is on the way out and ghosting defence will be the main choice.

Answer 4

Cory has it spot on, it is mostly used in rugby union, but Shaun Edwards, a league legend, introduced it as part of defence when he became head coach at Wasps, it is very similar to the way league defends.