prop advice

Question
Hello, I'm a 14 year old prop and i am quite a big lad. In
the scrum when we are all locked together and we all start to push, i become very weak and find it difficult to use my strength to my advantage and find it difficult to push.
Have you got any advice?

Also when we are playing and i get the ball, when i run with it and someone comes towards me, its as if i get scared or something because i always forget what to do and am brought down. Why is this?

Answer
Hi Andrew, don't take it the wrong way but I feel you could probably improve on your technique a lot more. Strength is important but at the age of 14 your should stay away from weights and keep to core work (sit ups, crunches, "planks" Swiss ball work.) Also pull ups. If you can't do 10 pull ups you require more strength work.

Here is a link of technique  / body position which you should treat as your gospel:

Scrummaging:

http://www.coachingrugby.com/rugby/coaching/unitskills/scrum/buildingthescrum.ht...

http://www.usarugby.org/media/EDocs/scrum.pdf

http://www.texasyouthrugby.com/download/748/docs/Building_the_scrum.pdf

I can imagine you probably need to get a lot lower in the crouch potion and work more on getting under your opposite prop and driving up/back.

As for your running only you know if you are getting scared. That is not uncommon and is perfectly natural. The thing to remember is that in contact sport it is the play who hesitates that usually gets injured first. Commit to your running and tackling in the idea that you will be safer by over committing than holding back.

Next, when you run if you run into the tackler and drop to the ground and present the ball back for your team to get then that is a success. If you can bust through tackles great but good players know how to maintain position when they eventually get tackled.

Finally, keeping the ball is key but so is overall possession. When running run towards the try line but run into spaces not into players. You tend to get closer to the try line buy avoiding the tacklers, don't get sucked into running at/into them to prove you can bust a tackle. That is making things difficult. If you can run around a player, fend a player off or make them commit to tackling you and then make a pass to a team mate. You will be assisting your team mate in making it closer to the try line and if you quickly run to support your team mate he may end up passing it back to you. That is the essence of running rugby.