Context

Given the difference in sizes and shapes of rugby players, it’s often the case that you’ll need to compete with someone bigger than you. At ruck time, this can be very challenging. If you’re supporting a teammate at the ruck and a much larger defender has already arrived before you and established a low, powerful body position, they can be very hard to move. You can’t get underneath them and clean them off the ball in a traditional sense. But you have to do something. You can’t just let them have the ball. So many elite rugby programs have begun training for this situation by teaching a technique termed the ‘Alligator Roll’.

The Alligator Roll involves driving aggressively into the player over the ball, grasping them firmly around the midsection and then falling in a controlled fashion away from the ruck, hopefully with the defender still attached to you. In theory, this should create clean ball for the half-back to play.

*NOTE* – referees in all levels of the game are being instructed to penalize players who perform an Alligator Roll while grasping the head or neck of an opponent. If you’re going to carry out this maneuver, practice getting it right to avoid penalties.

Why this drill?

Training the Alligator Roll can be quite risky. The maneuver involves a high degree of difficulty. For the player being rolled out of the way, it also poses the risk of injury. Being twisted aggressively by another player when you’re in a low-entrenched position isn’t great for the knees or ankles

Avoid injury in training – to train the Alligator Roll, the Ohio Pro Rugby team has devised a setup using two tackling bags laid one on top of the other in a criss-cross. Attacking this ‘mock defender’ eliminates the chances of hurting a teammate in training.

– to train the Alligator Roll, the Ohio Pro Rugby team has devised a setup using two tackling bags laid one on top of the other in a criss-cross. Attacking this ‘mock defender’ eliminates the chances of hurting a teammate in training. Initial impact – the Alligator Roll is very much about rolling the defender out of the way. But the initial impact is crucial. By using tackling bags, the player doing the drill can practice making an aggressive initial impact before grasping and rolling.

Why the Alligator Roll is worth learning

There are certain situations on the field where you simply don’t have a choice but to do something that involves risk. When attempting to clean out a ruck where the defender has arrived before you, Alligator Rolling them out of the way is one such choice. Because there is a high risk of both injury and being penalized, you should practice this if you’re going to try and employ it during a game. Alternatively, you could always just arrive at the ruck faster, so you don’t need to resort to this drastic measure.