rugby tips - crash ball guide.

Crash ball is when you run straight at the defense's line, the desirable effect is to break the line but usually it just gains a couple meters over the gain line (gain line is where your last player was tackled so your advancing towards the oppositions try line).
Crash ball is a good way to mix your attack up and repeated crash ball can give your backs time to organize, a great tactic teams often use is to do crash ball a few time in a row with the forwards, this draws the opposition into and around the ruck which leaves space for you backs on the outside to make a break and gain some ground and even score.

Pick and go:

There's a couple different ways you might use crash ball, the first is pick and go, basically this is taking the ball from the back of the ruck and going straight into the immediate defense around the ruck, go in very low, head down and drive your legs, make sure you tuck the ball in to your chest so you don't lose it or get held up and create a maul. Also before taking the ball make sure you've communicated with your scrum half and its okay with him or he'll get annoyed.

Proper crash ball:

This is where you stand off the ruck and run at the opposition from a depth.

The two most important things when doing this is to make sure you have at least one other forward with you, but its better if you have two or three, and not to stand in the fly half's channel!

What you need to remember is that when calling for crash ball ( by saying your a runner or whatever other call you want) is that your giving your scrumhalf an option and by standing in the fly half's way your blocking the scrumhalf's other option and when you do that both your scrumhalf and flyhalf get very annoyed, so the trick is to stand slightly behind the channel of the flyhalf (the channel is basically the line of the flight of the ball from the scrumhalf to the flyhalf).

So like i said above shout a call like 'i'm a runner' so the scrumhalf know's your there, if the scrumhalf gives you the ball, you need to run straight and hard at the opposition- this is kind of common sence but run at the gap between two players making it harder for them to tackle you and making it more likely for you to gain ground- also like with the pick and go run low and tuck the ball in to your chest and run low but not as much  as with the pick and go because you want to keep going.

When you go in to contact don't go straight down, keep going with your legs with small and powerful strides, don't go down easy!
To make as much ground as possible, your teammate's will also help by pushing you which also makes it easier for them to win the ruck as they have the momentum going forward and the opposition are 

going back.

The video above shows Munster doing 33 phases of crash ball, it shows you exactly what it should look like and at 2.55 it shows how it can lead to an overlap.

Note though in this case there main aim was to hold on to the ball till the end of the match as they were winning.