The Travelling Prop

Starting position

A five-man lineout that starts like any other and changes address along the way. On the call the line splits in two: the 4 and the 7 drop to the front, the 5 and the 3 come back from the tail. A hole opens in the middle, and the defence follows it because it is big and easy to read. What they do not follow is the second move: the prop steps out of the line, goes round the back, and travels the length of the lineout to the rear pod. He arrives at the exact moment the throw goes long. The 5 jumps at the tail, lifted by a prop nobody expected to be there, and the ball goes off the top to the 9. The whole jumping zone has moved house, and the one thing that actually mattered went unnoticed.