Product Description

A comprehensive, action-packed guide to playing rugby.

Rugby is the fastest-growing contact sport in North America. This hard-hitting game, long popular at college campuses, is now being played at high schools and community parks.

The new edition of the best-selling Rugby Skills, Tactics and Rules presents the latest information on all aspects of the game, along with an updated list of useful addresses. The book also features exciting images from the 2007 World Cup, including expert captions that describe the very latest skills and tactics used at the highest level.

Features include:

• All the tactics and skills of the game at every level -- for beginners, experienced players and coaches
• Over 150 color photographs with captions explaining player positions and strategies
• Basic and specialized skills
• Coaching, including training, team patterns and motivation
• The rules and laws of the game, including playing field dimensions
• Fascinating trivia and amusing stories from around the world.

Rugby Skills, Tactics and Rules is packed with superb, full-color action photographs of the sport's greatest players in action. Complete with glossary, a rules section, updated addresses and websites, this book has everything a player, coach or fan needs to enjoy the game.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56831 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781554073795
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
[Review of earlier edition:] Make[s] lavish use of color photographs to illustrate the basic positions... clearly written text. (Terry Madden Library Journal )

About the Author

Tony Williams is a New Zealand-based journalist and the author of more than 20 books, of which 13 are rugby titles.

Former All Black Frank Bunce is a rugby legend and one of the greatest centers of all time. He is now a commentator on the sport, and a high-performance coach at the International Rugby Academy.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

THE GAME FOR ALL

Pictured on the cover of this book is one of the most exciting rugby players in the world -- All Black Dan Carter. When Dan was a boy his parents got fed up with him kicking the rugby ball on to their roof, so they built him a set of rugby posts at the bottom of the yard, and there he would practice hour after hour.

As talented as Dan Carter is, it is learning the techniques and practicing them over and over that made him a skilled rugby player. (A technique is simply a way of doing something that works.) How these techniques are put to use in a team situation is called tactics. But that's not enough: you also have to know the laws. Rugby is a simple game, but the laws can be complex. The key to success and enjoyment in rugby is to master the skills, know the laws and use the best tactics for the situation.

Rugby Skills, Tactics and Rules simplifies the game so that a child of about 10 can understand it, but it also offers a broader knowledge for more experienced players and coaches. It begins with an explanation of the individual skills -- from the most basic through to the specialized -- followed by unit and team skills, moves and strategies, each layered one on top of the other. Toward the back of the book is a plain-language guide to the rules of rugby and a glossary, so that rugby terms can be clearly understood. Every time you struggle to understand, make a long kick to the glossary and clear up the meaning of that unfamiliar rugby term!

Read this book, reread it, watch, learn and practice. Rugby is the game with the most rules because it actually has the most freedoms. It allows you to express yourself in so many ways, such as kicking and passing the ball, tackling, pushing, pulling and getting muddy. Unlike most sports, you can use every part of your body, and there is no feeling in the world like running with the ball in open space, the opposition chasing after you, the goal line getting closer and closer.

Rugby Skills, Tactics and Rules gives you the basis of how to play rugby. After that it is up to players and coaches to be innovative and come up with new tricks and moves and, above all, to have fun!

Customer Reviews

For Beginners Only
I bought this book based on the reviews, and I am dissappointed.

I am an intermediate player with a strong desire to improve, and possibly get into coaching after I stopped playing. I assumed that given the book's length that there would be much more detailed discussion of strategy, tactics, drills, etc. However, the book is more suited for a "coffee table". Even the description of the laws of the game at the end of the book are not very detailed, and offer no context for understanding current controversies in the sport (e.g. what should happen after a tackle, when a ruck is formed, what is permissible during rucks & mauls).

The book is loaded with pictures and the type is very large. It does describe the all of the positions and the basic mode of the play, but falls very short of helping intermediate through experienced players develop their skills, tactics, and knowledge of the rules of the game.

Buy it for the pictures or if you are new to the sport.

great introduction for beginners
I play Rugby and this is a good book for someone ne to the game. It explains quite clearly the different tactics for different positions and has good photographs to show you It's really helpful for beginners of any age.

A nice start for novices
The book is very handy and actually has nice photographs, but it is targeted to a novice or a "fresh start" rugby enthusiast. Keeping this point in mind, it is a remarkable work, both in style and guise, because skills, tactics and rules are clearly explained.

The text is simple but quite serious, hence being rugby an "informal" sport, a better explanation should be devised for some particular events during the match. The lineout is a typical example: in fact the rule, which permit an aided 6-foot plus gentleman to hover in the air waiting for the oval, must have been thought up by a three-quarter who flew Harriers (the famous vertical landing fighter airplane!). This strange engagement is characterized by a devastatingly human exertion, that is the pathological damage this may cause the unsuspecting jumper's groin when his shorts is pulled sharply upwards by two herculean "thrusters"! So far for the tactics!!

Another amusing rule too seriously explained is when the front rows collapse during a set scrum. The refree (the usual scapegoat for italian fans!!!) gives a penalty against the prop that goes down first. He may be the less potent of the two, the more tired or simply could quite easily have slipped, but no!, the sanction is quick,steadfast and irrevocable: he did on purpose, shame on him! Since the international refrees are not robust specimen of human race, with large diameter trunks and necks, they wrongfully suppose that above huge necks there is little capacity for gray matter. So the modern prop will use this misconception to his advantage when there is a scrum nearby the Opposition try line. Thus, by all means, usually illegal, he will check the opposite prop's thrust while collapsing, therefore automatically gaining a penalty kick from the best position ever. That's what we call a teamwork!!

That said, I will recommend this volume to anyone interested in this wonderful game, but getting in touch with its rules for the first time.