Contact is coached in person, on a pitch, by someone watching you. This page is here to make that coaching land faster, not to replace it. Rugby AI does not score tackles and never will. We cannot see legality, head contact, or force from a phone, so we do not guess at them. Do not practise contact alone or with a friend who has not been coached.
Guides / Contact / Falling safely
Contact
Guide
Falling safely
The floor arrives whether you planned for it or not. This drill starts low and stays low, so that going down is something you have done on purpose before you do it by accident.
What good looks like
- Chin tucked towards your chest from the moment you start moving
- You spread the landing along your side rather than taking it on one point
- Hands and forearms stay in front of your chest, never reaching back behind you
- You finish on your side, curled slightly, not flat and not face down
The drill
- Find soft, flat grass. Check the whole area for anything hard before you start.
- Start from a squat, as low as you can comfortably get.
- Tip slowly sideways and let your side meet the ground. Chin tucked, arms in front.
- Stop there. Do not roll on and do not add momentum.
- Get back up the way you practised on the ground position page.
- Three each side. Stop the session if anything hurts and tell your coach.
Space
Two metres of soft, flat grass, checked for anything hard. No partner and nothing to fall over.
Stay low, and here is the reason
The whole drill happens from a squat because a controlled fall from low down is a movement pattern, and a fall from any height is an impact. We are not going to publish a progression that ends with a player throwing themselves at the ground in a garden.
If it feels too easy, that is the drill working correctly rather than a sign to add height.
Make it easier
Sit on the grass first and practise only the last part, lowering from sitting onto your side with the chin tucked. There is no harder version of this drill on this page, and that is deliberate.
Contact is taught, not scored.
Solo and contactless. Contact itself belongs in coached training.
