SH Question - Forwards Autonomy

Another question from SH who has been reading my blog (Hi Dani!):

"Do you encourage your forwards to make their own decision to pick up the ball when a scrum/ruck is getting frustrating or do you tell them to wait for you to make that decision?"

Short answer = Yes. I believe that as SHs we should be empowering our fwds to make decisions and play what they see in front of them, which brings me to...

Medium-length answer = It depends on the experience level of your fwds. New fwds are often tempted to pick-and-go because they see the ball sitting there or want to run with it, so it's important they know that their primary job is to win clean ball for the SH and most often that means they should ruck over it and leave it for you.

Longer answer = There are times when you want the fwds to take care of the ball. Fwds can have autonomy over "slow ball" when it's taking a while to produce ball and the defense is already lined up. The SH should be calling "Slow Ball" so they know that they should do something different to get the ball moving again. It could be rolling a stagnant maul, a fwd pick-and-go running at the seam of the ruck (at the posts), or a SH scoot. All of these could be called by the SH, but the fwds should feel empowered to call these (I know some may disagree that a fwd could call a scoot, but I think it's helpful for the SH to know that there are fwds behind her that see something).

Remember, one of the most important aspects of our job on the field is to communicate what's going on so the team can make better informed decisions. This means giving the fwds info like "Slow ball", "Fast ball", "Settle it down", "Messy ball, clean it up", "Scrumhalf in the ruck", etc. and then letting their experience and the situation dictate what they should do.

Hope that helps!