{"id":18,"date":"2017-02-11T15:33:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T15:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/?p=18"},"modified":"2017-03-03T01:00:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T01:00:18","slug":"kick-off-and-rucking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/2017\/02\/11\/kick-off-and-rucking\/","title":{"rendered":"Kick off and Rucking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the beginning of the game, there is a coin toss between the two teams&#8217; captains. \u00a0The winner of the coin toss decides if her team will start the game kicking (on defense) or receiving (on offense).<\/p>\n<p>During the kick off, the team that is kicking stays in a straight line behind the kicker&#8217;s last foot. As soon as the ball leaves her foot, the team runs up and attempts to tackle whoever caught the ball.<\/p>\n<p>The team that is receiving the ball is in a formation called the exploded scrum. \u00a0This formation ensures that the receiving team is spread out enough to catch the ball wherever it goes and close enough that when someone gets tackled, she has teammates nearby to ruck.<\/p>\n<p>When a player is tackled, a ruck is formed. The one tackled only has a few seconds to place the ball towards her team before she has to release it. \u00a0She then wants to roll or crawl away from it as soon as possible to avoid getting stepped on by either team. \u00a0The players in the ruck try to keep possession of the ball by having it stay between her feet until the scrum half is able to pick it up and pass it to her team. \u00a0The other team tries to do the same. \u00a0When rucking against someone, one wants to get lower than the player she is rucking against with knees slightly bent and a straight back, one foot in front of the other. \u00a0Other players from her team then support her by \u00a0placing her shoulder on the first rucker&#8217;s behind and pushing until the ball on the ground is between her feet.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/files\/2017\/02\/14666131_1057372151050881_4902451395504238238_n.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-19 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/files\/2017\/02\/14666131_1057372151050881_4902451395504238238_n.jpg\" alt=\"ruck 1\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/files\/2017\/02\/14666131_1057372151050881_4902451395504238238_n.jpg 960w, https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/files\/2017\/02\/14666131_1057372151050881_4902451395504238238_n-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The ruck is over when the ball is out. \u00a0A good way to tell is that if a hypothetical bird can poop on the ball because it is not being contained by a player, then the ball is out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the beginning of the game, there is a coin toss between the two teams&#8217; captains. \u00a0The winner of the coin toss decides if her team will start the game kicking (on defense) or receiving (on offense). During the kick off, the team that is kicking stays in a straight line behind the kicker&#8217;s last &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/2017\/02\/11\/kick-off-and-rucking\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Kick off and Rucking<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[304977],"tags":[397457,396464,397822,362808],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terminology","tag-kick-off","tag-ruck","tag-rucking","tag-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/saturdaysarugbyday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}