Techniques for Stripping a Rugby Ball

Making clean and legal strips of the ball in rugby involves incredible pace, agility and bravery to dip your face into high contact situations. When conducted legally, stripping the ball is a very quick and simple way to turnover the ball, allowing your team to instantly turn defense into attack.

  1. Position and Approach

    • It is almost impossible to steal the ball successfully if you end up beneath the player you are tackling. Attempt to always remain top side of the player you are trying to strip the ball away from. Furthermore, rugby union laws require that you do not go to ground when making a legal strip; once you are grounded — when your knee, hip or shoulder contacts the ground — you cannot strip the ball.

    Making the Tackle

    • Stay upright when making your tackle, keeping your knees slightly bent into contact and pushing hard with your arms and shoulders. Make sure your tackle is on or below the shoulder so that it is legal and that you have made a strong connection with the player you have tackled so that he loses his grip on the ball.

    Returning to Upright

    • Use your opponent's body or the ground to push yourself back into a standing position with the ball. Your aim is to return to an upright but low position from which you can strip the ball from the player you have tackled. Leveraging yourself back onto your feet using your opponent also ensures that he cannot get back upright to tackle you.

    Stripping the Ball

    • Dip back towards the tackler, aiming to get two hands onto the ball, and strip it from the tackled player. Do not enter contact if you hear a call of "ruck" or "hands off" from the referee, which indicates that you can no longer legally strip the ball, as a teammate of your opponent has joined the tackle situation, making it a ruck. Furthermore, if you are attempting a strip and hear either of these calls, you must withdraw from your strip attempt. Ask the referee for a ruling if the grounded player attempts to hold onto the ball, as this is also not permissible in the rules of rugby.

    Getting a Pass Away

    • Pass the ball away from the tackle situation as quickly as possible following your strip. Take the ball and lean back into an upright position before playing a pass to an onside teammate, either left or right depending on the match situation.