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Italy No Ruck Rugby defense

+3 HS
Zimmy07's picture
February 27, 2017 at 9:21pm
20 Comments

Italy used a very bizzare defensive tactic in their game against England a few days ago which involved exploiting a rule loophole.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/772681/E...

I'm not really a rugby expert so my explanation may be a bit off, here goes anyway:

apparently if the defenders do not maintain contact with the offensive players in the pile after a tackle there is no offsides rule, only a 3 foot exclusion zone.  So Italy was giving up about a yard by not forming a ruck in order to have defenders behind the line.

Italy did not win & in fact kind of got stomped in the 2nd half.

I wonder if anyone saw the game?  I am guessing England decided to just take small chunks of field in a steady march. 

Was this just a one time tactic?  I've never seen anything like this in rugby.

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