Using Footwork to Manipulate the Defence With Lachie Miller

Hey guys, Lockie Miller here from the Aussie Sevens. Today we're going to run through a couple of basic drills on how to manipulate a player with your feet. A lot of people they'll look at sidestepping and they'll think like you know it's a natural skill, it comes naturally, but to me I really think you can practice a sidestep. When I was younger I used to look at people like Quade Cooper, like the Cheslin Colbys and stuff and I really used to try and mimic their stepping. In this drill we would really want to focus on your balance and getting this plant of foot, whether it's your left or right, depends which one you prefer to go off, gaining power out of that and accelerating out. So if we walk through it we're looking like we're going that way, power and then speed out. Pretty much with every step you do you're going to have a plant leg going off your left and your right, but for this instance we're going to go off our right. When we do plant we really want to plant that foot there, you sort of activate all your muscles in that leg and then you push out and you accelerate out. So if we do it a bit quicker it'll kind of look like... Alright, progression to that first drill everyone is you'll need a partner. This drill here is all about keeping your eyes up, trying to read which way the defender is going to and you using the first skills we use in that first drill and to change the direction and beat your defender. With our partner here he's going to point left or right and we're going to react off that and change direction and go which way he's pointing. For this we can start off slow until we can build our reps and then once you get a little bit more confident you can build your speed up. Alright the final progression today is we're going to add one more element. We're going to use everything we just worked on the first two drills but we're going to try and dictate to a defender where we want him to go and then we'll step. So what we're going to do is we're going to try and make him think we're going one way and then we're going to quickly go back off our plant foot and go back the other way. So it'll look a little bit like this. Personally this is my favorite way to beat a defender. There is numerous ways you can do it whether it's with your eyes, with your feet before you actually do step or even with the dummy. So we really want to sell it. We really want to think we're going wide and then we're back again. So what we're looking for here is we're looking for the player to really chase us and get those hips turned towards the sideline. As soon as we see that we're going to as soon as we say that we're going to go back off the outside foot and come back. Let's just remember that when we are in a game to keep our eyes up so once we have stepped, used all that power, got our balance back, we can look eyes up, step again or accelerate through a gap.