The 1-3-3-1, counted across the pitch
Rugby · Attack · 15 of your players
The digits are a width map, not lines of depth. Eight forwards spread from touchline to touchline, the halves and centres in behind, and a pod waiting on either side of every breakdown.
Opens on a rugby pitch with the shape already drawn. Free, no signup.
The width map, not a depth chart
Read the numbers across the field rather than back from the ball: one forward in the left 15 m channel, a pod of three, a second pod of three, one forward in the right channel. In this drawing the two channel forwards stand about 7 m in from each touchline, Pod A occupies roughly 20 m to 26 m across and Pod B roughly 42 m to 48 m, and all eight are on more or less the same line about 29 m out from the try line. The scrum-half sits a couple of metres behind that line between the pods, the fly-half about 6 m deeper again in the middle of the pitch, the two centres stepping out to the right, the left wing hard against the far touchline and the fullback deepest of all.
The reason the shape survives contact is arithmetic. Wherever the next ruck forms, there is already a pod on both sides of it. Nobody has to run 30 m across the field to be the first forward to the next carry, which is the tax a two-pod shape keeps charging the moment the ball comes back the other way.
When a 1-3-3-1 earns its keep
Use it for multi-phase attack in the middle third, when you want to go left, right, left without stopping to reorganise. It suits a side whose forwards can carry in threes — one ball carrier, two cleaners — and whose halves are happy to play what is in front of them rather than run a called move.
It is a poor fit for the first two phases off a set piece, where you want numbers concentrated, and it punishes a pack that drifts. Two pods that creep towards the ball turn 1-3-3-1 into 1-6-1, and the far channel forward is then 40 m from help.
The two habits to drill
- Pods hold their channel. Drag Pod B five metres towards the ruck and show the players the gap that opens on the far side. That picture wins the argument faster than shouting "stay wide" for twenty minutes.
- The channel forward is a real option. Draw a pass from the fly-half past both centres to the right channel forward, then animate it, so the wide forward stops being scenery.
- Reload, not recover. Mark where each pod has to be for phase two and drag them there, so the run to the next ruck is a distance rather than an instruction.
Load this template in the designer, put your own carriers in the pods, and draw the two phases you actually want to see on Saturday.
Also known as
- pods
- phase play
- 1-3-3-1
- forward distribution
- width
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Put the Attacking pods (1-3-3-1) on a pitch
It opens with the shape already drawn. Move the players your team does differently, drag the runs, and send your squad a link that animates.
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