Overview
Technical skills cover the skills that rugby players need to have to be successful in the game. No player will be good at all the skills, so players will tend to specialise in those skills that are most important for the position they tend to play the most.
Each player will have a skill level cap, which is equal to +40 levels over what they came out of the Academy with at age 18. A player can raise their skills beyond the skill cap for that skill, but each skill level above the cap takes longer to train (training gains per session are halved per +1 over the cap). For example, a player who graduates from the Youth Academy with a Scrum skill of level 20 will have a Scrum skill cap of level 60 - if they reached this cap then all training gains to reach level 61 would be at 50% (halved). Once at level 61, to get to level 62 the training gains would he at 25% (halved again), skill level 63 would be at 12.5% gains and so on.
Technical Skills
| Skill | Description |
|---|---|
| Awareness | A player’s ability to spot weaknesses and gaps in the defensive line in time to direct attacks towards them. Especially useful for the scrum-half and fly-half, who are often in the best position to shape the team’s attack, but useful for all players in open play for judging the space and time they have around them when ball carrying. |
| Catching | This skill is used both to catch a ball passed to the player, as well as to catch a high ball that the player is competing for and also avoiding fumbling the ball when a player wins a lineout. |
| Counter-Rucking | This skill is used by defending players in a ruck to try and disrupt and slow down the attacker’s ruck ball, as well as actually stealing the ball and achieving a turnover. |
| Kicking | This skill is used both for place kicking (kick-offs and penalties kicks) and kicking out of hand i.e. kicking when in open play. A key skill for a designated kicker. |
| Lineout Jumping | This skill is used when jumping to compete for a thrown ball in the lineout. The lineout throws that require a player to jump to compete to win the ball are short, medium and long throws. |
| Lineout Throwing | This skill is used by a hooker to throw the ball into a lineout and governs how accurate the player is at throwing to their lineout target. |
| Line-Breaking | This skill is a prime attacking skill for a player carrying the ball, and involves spotting weaknesses and small gaps in the defensive line as the player approaches, and then using the best running angles to target them effectively. |
| Maul | This skill governs how effective a player is when competing in a maul, and covers both moving the maul in a desired direction, as well as protecting or trying to steal the ball within the maul. |
| Passing | This skill governs how good the player is at passing the ball. While you would like all your players to be good at passing, it is an important skill for the backs, and a key skill for a scrum-half. |
| Rucking | This skill is used by attacking players in a ruck to protect possession and produce quick ball. |
| Scrum | This skill determines how effective the player is in the dark arts of the scrum. An important skill for all forwards, but especially for the props. |
| Tackling | This skill covers the ability of the player to efficiently cover their defensive assignment, as well as the technical ability to make a tackle with maximum impact and chance of success. |