Hey hope you are all well. I've played Rugby League since I was 9 (now 22) and currently play in the NCL Premier Division in England. However due to the current coronavirus situation our season has been cancelled and replaced by a few regional games at the end of the year. One of my mates who plays union has told me that they are preparing to play a relatively normal season with a few more games involved (as it stands right now) and has asked me to come and play a bit of Union for a season. I played a bit when I was younger but haven't played any Union for years.
I'm a bit unsure on how my skills will transfer over... In League my primary position is loose forward and back row but I've also played dummy half as well. At 5 foot 8 inches and 15.3 stone I'm primarily a defensive player. basically my job is to top the tackle count every week so that the big guys and the skilful guys are fresh for when we're attacking. my role is to do their tackling for them when possible. I love that though and defending and hitting hard is my best attribute. In attack I'm more of a ball player and a distributor linking the play... we run a lot of block shapes with runners out the back etc and a lot of the time I'll be the first receiver on those plays... but I have a decent side step as well and I try and do a lot of support work and things like that, running off the shoulders of our props and whoever is carrying the ball to take some pressure off them. I'm also a good lead runner on set plays etc -I'm good at running lines off the ball to create space for others.
I don't think I'll be entertaining the locals with blistering speed and mazy runs but hopefully I can do the ugly stuff to help those players shine, maybe I'll be able to help put them into some space as well. I have a bit of a knowledge of the breakdown but in terms of scrums and lineouts all the technicalities will be quite new to me and I don't 100% know the in-depth roles of the positions either. Any tips on a potential position and maybe some things to look for would be brilliant!
I'm a bit unsure on how my skills will transfer over... In League my primary position is loose forward and back row but I've also played dummy half as well. At 5 foot 8 inches and 15.3 stone I'm primarily a defensive player. basically my job is to top the tackle count every week so that the big guys and the skilful guys are fresh for when we're attacking. my role is to do their tackling for them when possible. I love that though and defending and hitting hard is my best attribute. In attack I'm more of a ball player and a distributor linking the play... we run a lot of block shapes with runners out the back etc and a lot of the time I'll be the first receiver on those plays... but I have a decent side step as well and I try and do a lot of support work and things like that, running off the shoulders of our props and whoever is carrying the ball to take some pressure off them. I'm also a good lead runner on set plays etc -I'm good at running lines off the ball to create space for others.
I don't think I'll be entertaining the locals with blistering speed and mazy runs but hopefully I can do the ugly stuff to help those players shine, maybe I'll be able to help put them into some space as well. I have a bit of a knowledge of the breakdown but in terms of scrums and lineouts all the technicalities will be quite new to me and I don't 100% know the in-depth roles of the positions either. Any tips on a potential position and maybe some things to look for would be brilliant!
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