Rugby lineout moves: the front-ball maul and off the top

What Law 18 sets up for you

Before you design a move, know the picture the law draws. Each team forms a single line half a metre from the mark of touch, so there is a one-metre gap between them, and the lineout stands between the five-metre and fifteen-metre lines. You need at least two players in it, and the team throwing in decides the maximum: if you call a five-man lineout, the opposition may not put six in.

The throw has to go straight along the mark of touch and reach the five-metre line before it lands. A receiver, usually the scrum-half, stands two metres back from their own line. Everyone not in the lineout stays at least ten metres from the mark of touch until it ends. That ten metres is the gift: it is the space your backs have to attack, and it is why a lineout move is usually worth more than a scrum move in the same place.

Lifting is legal. Lifters may pre-grip a jumper, but not below the shorts from behind or below the thighs from the front, and must lower the jumper safely as soon as either team wins the ball. Many age-grade codes play uncontested lineouts with no lifting at all, so check your union's regulations first. Both moves below still work without a lift: the throw simply goes lower. The lineout template shows all fifteen of your players where the marks put them.

A word on the drawings below. A real pod stands shoulder to shoulder, and drawn that close on a phone the jumper, the lifters and the hooker become one blob. So the animations use a short three-man lineout, a jumper and two lifters spread across the five-to-fifteen-metre channel, with the scrum-half drawn a little deeper than the two metres the law asks of a receiver. They also leave the opposition's lineout off, as the template does, so you can see who jumps, who lifts and who peels. On the day your pod stands far tighter than this, and the other side's line is a metre away.

Move one: front ball, maul, hooker peels off the back

The highest-percentage score in club rugby. A lineout ten metres out, a short three-man line, and the throw to the front pod, where it is hardest to compete for. The jumper lands, the two lifters drive in around him, and the hooker, who has just thrown, loops round and joins at the back.

The ball goes back through the maul to the hooker. The maul drives, and once all of its players' feet are past the mark of touch the lineout is over and the backs can come forward. Close to the line, the defence piles in to stop the drive, and that is the moment the hooker peels off the back and goes round the side to score.

What makes it work:

• The throw is to the front, and it is quick. The opposition have least time to lift against a ball thrown nine or ten metres.
• The maul forms before the jumper lands. Lifters bind on as they lower, and the hooker and the scrum-half arrive from behind, not from the side.
• The ball moves to the back early. A maul with the ball at the front is a maul that can be held up.

The peel is the variation. If the defence does not commit, keep driving: a maul that is going forward is a maul the referee lets go on.

Move two: middle ball off the top to a flat ten

From further out, on the opposition 22, the maul is slower and the ten metres in midfield is the better weapon. The jumper stands in the middle of a three-man line, goes up and taps the ball straight down to the scrum-half without landing with it, and the fly-half runs onto the pass flat.

The timing is the whole move. The fly-half and centres must stay ten metres back until the lineout ends, which happens when the ball leaves it. So they start deep and run forward, arriving on the ten-metre line as the scrum-half passes. The fly-half carries it up to commit his opposite number, and the inside centre comes onto a short line behind him, taking a flat pass into the gap the defence's first two players leave.

Two things lose this ball. A tap that goes forward or wide, rather than down into the scrum-half's hands, and a fly-half who stands flat from the start and has to wait. Practise the tap first: the lineout throw and lift drill is the right session for it.

Calling it

Keep the calls short and keep them to two or three. A team with eight lineout calls loses more throws to confusion than to the opposition. One call for front ball and maul, one for middle and off the top, and one for the back when the other side starts to read you is enough for a season.

If you also run moves from the scrum, the backline moves from a scrum guide covers the miss pass, which works off the same flat ten.

Sending it to your players

Both moves are live animations. Open one in the rugby play designer, move the pod to suit your jumpers, and send the link to the forwards before training.