Improving Ruck Intensity: Strategies for More Aggressive Rucking

Question
Hi, I asked a previous question on the scrum and since implementing some of the information from your answer our scrum has improved so thank you for that. However i have another question regarding rucking. I watched the New Zealand v Ireland game at the weekend and noticed how aggressive and physical the rucking was. In our previous game our rucking lacked any fire. I was wandering how you could turn bog standard rucking and counter rucking into something resembling what NZ have?

Thanks

Answer
It takes a lot of drills during traing to get rucking right. It takes a lot of practice. We get taught agressive rucking from a very young age in NZ (at least I did) so don't expect big results early.

Basic drills like a ball placed next to a takle bag with the forwards rucking over. The key is to get them linked up and in a low body position like a scrum.

The first 2 player to the ruck have to sink up and just blow over the ball, the half back has a big role in directing the forwards as well.

If you have enough players you might do live rucking at training to simulate the ruck

The key thing is that after a lot of training and practice your team will instinctively get in sinc and the drive over the ruck will get faster and harder.