A seven-man lineout, drawn to the marks

Lineout (7-man), a rugby set piece drawn in Playmaker: 15 of our players on the pitch. — Hooker (thrower) — 1 of 15

Rugby · Set piece · 15 of your players

Every part of a lineout is governed by a line, and a whiteboard has none of them. Here the seven forwards sit between the 5 m and the 15 m because that is where the laws put them.

Open in Playmaker

Opens on a rugby pitch with the shape already drawn. Free, no signup.

Seven bodies between two lines

The line forms about 26 m out from the try line — just outside your own 22 — and runs from roughly 5.5 m to 15 m in from the touchline, with about 1.5 m between each pair of feet. Front jumper and front lifter, middle jumper and middle lifter, back lifter and back jumper, and the tail of the lineout at the far end. The hooker throws from the touchline itself. The scrum-half stands just outside the 15 m line, a metre or so behind the tail, which is the detail most diagrams get wrong.

Behind that, the backs are stacked rather than flat: the fly-half about 7 m back and 6 m outside the 15, the two centres stepping out from there, the right wing wide, the blindside wing tucked in near the touchline and the fullback deep behind the centres. The gap between the 15 m line and the fly-half is the space the whole move is played into, and on a whiteboard with no 15 m line it is invisible.

The lineout this suits

Seven in the line is the safe, orthodox choice: it gives you three lifting pods, a driving option, and enough forwards left over that the tail can peel or the ball can go off the top. Take it when you are inside your own half and want possession without a gamble.

Shorten the line if you want the space — a five-man lineout drags two more defenders out and hands your backs the same pitch with fewer bodies in it. Keep seven when your throw is under pressure, when the wind is against you, or when the plan is to maul.

What to fix first at training

Mark the receiver, not the jumper. Put the ball where the catch happens and draw the transfer to the scrum-half, so the two-second handover gets rehearsed like the rest.
The fly-half's depth is a number. Move them a metre closer to the line and animate it — that is how a backline move ends up being played standing still.
Show the peel. Drag the tail forward around the front and let it play, and the argument about who blocks whom answers itself.

Open the template in the designer, set the line the length your hooker trusts, then draw the throw, the catch and the first pass as one move.