I realise the game has changed over the years but many many moons ago when I played in the forwards we we taught at junior level if you dont have a clean pass then aim at the try line and run straight, at least you will get a metre.
To many times forwards believe they have to be a link man and act like a back. If nothing is happening be patient and just run straight!!!
I think our players spend too much time watching the skills of NZ forwards. We do not possess the same abilities and need to focus on being the best at what we do.
For me the backs are just as, if not more guilty of the silly offloads. Last team I played for in the states was big on offloading for continuity as we had a smallish pack but good and very fast backs. We were taught that if you can count to 2 after making contact it is too late to throw the offload 99.9% of the time. While this is obviously a "rule of thumb" I've seen it as an extremely effective one when it comes to offloading in contact.
The other rule of thumb was that if you lost the contact you generally do not want to even try to offload because it's just going to make shit much worse most of the time.
A lot of our players just seem to lack this decision-making ability in contact and then go searching for offloads that aren't there because they can't just say "no, it's not on" to themselves after a moment to look around. I think hesitation is the worst thing that a player can do on a Rugby pitch.
I'm going to pick on QC (Quade Cooper) here because she's by far the most egregious offender here and honestly should be one of our best at this skill, all things considered. I swear he's reached a 5-count and higher before throwing a dumb fucking hospital pass offload dozens of times over his Reds/Wallabies career. It's one of those fucking stupid things he does that can't seem to be coached out of him other than by Link (probably because he played his best rugby under him and he does shit like this WAY more when he's already not playing well).
The most disturbing part for me is that ANY player thinking that standing in contact that long, going nowhere, before throwing the offload is anything other than a bad idea belies a lack of game knowledge or at least a lack of application when it comes to active thinking about the game. That much time means the defensive line is reset and guess what there's no ruck so there's no offside line.. it's Rugby common sense but our boys don't seem to have much of that these days.
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