What to do in the seconds after a mistake, with the ball still live or with the whistle gone, and how to rehearse it alone.
By Etienne Ferrat · about 15 minutes to read, then 10 on your own
You go up for a high ball, it comes off your chest and bounces forward, and the referee's arm goes out, so their flanker picks it up and play carries on. Two phases later you're in the line but you're still watching that ball hit your chest, and when their 10 runs at the channel beside you, you're half a step late.
A mistake does make the next thing you do a bit more likely to go wrong, by less than it feels and by more when the moment is already big. So this chapter gives you something to do in that gap, at two speeds. Nobody has tested a reset like this in open play in rugby, so it's built from what professional players say works and from research in other sports, and it probably takes the edge off a mistake without wiping it.
The chapter in one line
After a mistake, say your next job and go and do it.
How to use thisRead parts 1 and 2, then fill in the card, which takes two minutes. Start the drill in part 4 this week, because a reset you've only read about probably won't be there in a match.
1
What a mistake does to the next play
After a mistake, the next thing you do is a bit more likely to go wrong. Across more than 200,000 plays in American football, the odds of a play failing went up by about 9 percent when the play before it had failed, and in Grand Slam tennis the odds of an error went up by about 20 percent after an error on the point before. In both, the effect was bigger when the moment was already big, and in the tennis the winners were caught by it as much as the losers.
So it's real and it's small. One mistake doesn't send your match into a spiral, but nobody is immune either, so it's probably worth having something ready. Who those numbers were measured on is near the bottom.
The closest thing rugby has is two small diary studies of professional union players. Their own errors were among the things that bothered them most often, and what they rated as working best was focusing on the task and putting in more effort. Whatever they did worked less well in matches than in training.
That gives the reset its shape, which is a job and some effort, rehearsed until it's automatic, at two speeds because rugby gives you two kinds of gap after a mistake. Nobody has measured how long a reset should take, and the old idea of a three-second one has nothing behind the number.
In each picture you're the yellow player and your team is red, at the bottom. In the first two they have the ball, so they're attacking down the page at you. A solid line is a pass or a kick and a dashed line is somebody running.
Live ballno time, so you act firstStoppagethe whistle has gone and you have ten seconds or more
You knock on and play goes on
You've knocked on, their man has picked it up and passed, and the teammates who were behind you are now a defensive line with a hole in it. Their runner is a second or two away from it.
1
You knock on, the referee plays advantage and they've got the ball
Breathe out hard as you turn, say your job word and sprint to it. From here the word is probably "line", because the hole in your defence is where you should be. How you feel about it can wait for the whistle.
Live ball
You knock on and the whistle goes
The same mistake, but the whistle has gone and it's their scrum, which takes a while to set. Here you're the inside centre, so you look at how their backs have lined up and find your man.
2
You knock on and the referee blows for their scrum
Now there's time, so breathe out long as you walk back, lift your eyes and find the man you're marking. Then tell the teammate next to you who you've got, and be on your spot before the scrum is set.
Stoppage
They score off your missed tackle
In fifteens your team kicks off again after they score, so here you're attacking up the page. Your 10 is kicking right, everybody starts behind the ball, and your first job is the chase.
3
You miss a tackle, they score, and you're walking back to halfway
Breathe out, get your chin up and say one useful thing to whoever is nearest, like where the kick is going. Then name your first job at the restart, which here is the chase, and jog to your spot.
Stoppage
Not for a knock to the headNone of this is for a knock to the head. If you take one, or you feel dazed, dizzy, sick or foggy, you stop, tell an adult or your coach, and get checked. Your own union's rules on coming back come first, and no reset is a way round them.
2
What goes into a reset
Both speeds are made of the same four parts, and what changes is how much of each you've got time for.
A markerOne small physical thing that says the mistake is over. I'd use a hard breath out, because you can do it while you're getting up or turning. A former All Blacks fly-half has said he tapped his leg in open play, and at the back of his run-up for a kick he pressed his toes into the end of his boots and felt the grass. Which one you pick doesn't seem to matter.
Your eyesAfter a mistake eyes tend to go down to the ground or up to the sky, and the psychiatrist who worked with the All Blacks on this says the skill is keeping them level. So chin up, and I'd go ball, nearest opponent, space.
A job wordOne word for the next thing you have to do, like "line", "chase", "fold" or "ball". That fly-half said "next task" and then answered it with something concrete, like getting to the next maul. A cue word is a skill of its own, and chapter 3 is where you build yours.
The actionThen you go and do it, flat out. The All Blacks' long-time mental skills coach talks about bringing your horizon in to the first five paces and putting the action ahead of the feeling.
With the ball live
There's only room for the short version, which is marker, word, go, with your eyes coming up as you move. It has to fit into getting up or turning round, so I'd keep it under two seconds, which is my rule of thumb, because no study has timed one.
At a stoppage
A scrum, a lineout, a penalty or the walk back after a score usually gives you ten seconds at least. The same psychiatrist describes three moves for getting back under pressure, "step back", "step up" and "step in". The names are his, and putting them at a stoppage, with something to do in each, is mine.
Step backOne long breath out, and a second to notice if you're too wound up or too flat for what comes next.
Step upEyes level, take in the whole picture, and say one useful thing to the nearest teammate.
Step inName your first job when play restarts, and walk or jog to the spot.
He says a breath and straight back in isn't enough, because you rejoin at the same level you left at, so the middle move is the one that changes something. A stoppage is also the only place I'd ask myself a question, because with the ball live a question is probably too slow.
This is where the red head and blue head idea fits. It comes from the same man, and in his telling red is the fast, feeling side and blue the slower, thinking side, and neither is good or bad. A tackle needs more red and a playmaking decision more blue, so the check when you step back is whether your mix suits your next job. It's a picture for noticing where you are, its author calls it a simplification, and it has never had a controlled test.
Two more moments
4
You miss a tackle and he's through
Get up on the breath out, say "chase" and go after the ball, because the next tackle or the next ruck needs somebody and you're one of the nearest.
Live ball
5
The referee gives one against you and you're sure he's wrong
The All Blacks' long-time mental skills coach gave a furious player this to do: walk two paces away, ask the nearest teammate what he's seeing, repeat it back, take one breath and rejoin. The player's frustration went from off the top of the scale to six or seven out of ten. You say nothing to the referee, and chapter 13 says why.
Stoppage
What it won't doA reset doesn't wipe a mistake. The player in the referee story came down to six or seven out of ten, which was enough to play the next moment, and the fly-half who used "next task" says every player loses it at some point in a match. So I'd judge a reset by what you did next, and leave how you felt out of it.
If the mistake was a kick at goal or a lineout throw, the next one gets a routine of its own, in chapter 6.
3
Build your own
Do this once, somewhere quiet. It takes about fifteen minutes, and the card further down has a box for each part.
Pick your markerA hard breath out is the one I'd start with, because it works lying on the ground as well as standing up. Add one of your own if you like, such as a light tap on your thigh, and then keep it the same, because the marker itself is arbitrary.
Write three job wordsThe three things your position does most often straight after the ball changes hands or a tackle is missed, one word each. If nothing comes, start with "next task" and answer it out loud.
Write both versionsThe live one fits on a line, like "breath out, 'line', sprint back level with the others". The stoppage one is three lines, with one plain thing you'd say to the teammate next to you, like who you're marking.
Turn the live one into a planWrite it the evening before a match as "if I knock on, then I breathe out, say 'line' and go". League tennis players who wrote if-then plans the day before a match, for moments like getting angry, were rated as playing better than players who only set a goal. The rules for wording one are in chapter 8.
Too vague
Usable
I stay calm
I breathe out, say "line" and sprint to it
Don't drop the next one
Say "ball" and go and get the next one
What should I do now?
A word I picked before the match
How to word it
None of this was tested on a reset, or on rugby players, so take it as a guide to the wording and nothing stronger.
A
Make it a thing to do
In a review of 24 studies of movement tasks, most found that telling yourself what to avoid under pressure tends to produce the very thing you named, and that wording it as an action reduces that. So "ball", and never "don't drop it".
B
Point it outside your body
This one costs nothing to try, and the evidence for it isn't settled. A 2021 summary of 73 studies and about 1,800 people found that attention on what you want to happen out there did a little better than attention on your own arms and legs, but a 2024 re-analysis that allowed for studies that never got published put the effect close to zero. It was also about carrying out a movement, so using it after a mistake is my stretch.
C
Keep the breath in its place
One breath out is a marker, somewhere for your attention to go. In one lab study people reported more relief in the five seconds after a deep breath than in the five before, and a review of 37 studies found that a single session of slow breathing made no difference to sport performance. Nobody has studied one breath in a match, and breathing gets a proper look in chapter 6.
4
Ten minutes on your own
You can't rehearse a reset without mistakes, so this drill makes some on purpose. You need a ball and a wall with a target marked in chalk or tape, or a ball and your phone. It's non-contact, like every drill in this guide.
Reset reps
Pick a way of making errors. The plainest is weak-hand passes against the wall at speed, at a target the size of the ball, from far enough back that some go wrong. With no wall, catch your own high kicks on the run, above your head only, or set your phone's interval timer to beep at random and treat every beep as a knock-on.
Every time you miss, fumble or hear the beep, run your live reset out loud: marker, eyes up, call one thing you can see, say your job word and sprint five paces.
Come straight back and do the next rep properly. That's the rep you score, clean or not.
Once in the ten minutes, stop for thirty seconds and run your stoppage version from memory, out loud.
Write down two numbers in a note on your phone, with the date: errors, and clean next reps.
From the second week, put a 20 metre shuttle before each rep so you're breathing hard, because a reset you can only do fresh probably won't be there in a match. That counts as tired work under the rules in chapter 12, so at most two of the week's sessions use the shuttle, never two days running, and the others are done without it. Adding real pressure to practice is chapter 6.
How you know it workedClean next reps out of errors, every session, like 9 out of 12. I'd do it three times a week for three weeks, which is a sensible guess, because no study gives a figure. It's doing something if the score climbs towards all of them, and if the marker and the word start turning up before you've thought about them.
What the research says about this drillNobody has tested this drill, or any reset for open play in rugby. The nearest study is of 36 experienced tenpin bowlers over four weeks, where the group that used a routine after the shot improved their league scores but showed no gain in accuracy. The reason to rehearse comes from the rugby diaries, where coping worked less well in matches than in training. So your own numbers are the only real test of this.
What you do with the mistake once the match is over is a different job, and how you explain a bad game to yourself is chapter 4.
When it's more than a mistakeA reset is for the ordinary sting of getting something wrong. If you're still replaying mistakes days later, if worry, low mood or bad sleep goes on for more than about two weeks, if you dread rugby, or if you ever think about harming yourself, this guide is the wrong tool. Tell a parent, a coach, a doctor or a school or university counsellor. If you don't know who to tell, findahelpline.com lists free helplines by country.
+
My reset
The top row is what you use at both speeds, and the two under it are the reset itself. It saves on this phone as you type. Fill it in once from part 3 and tick a row when you've used it in a match. On the pitch there's nothing to read.
For both speeds
The two speeds
1
Live ball
2
Stoppage
+
Count this in your next match
Count thisCount your own mistakes, and for each one whether the next thing you did was done properly, like a tackle made or a pass that went to hand. Write both numbers down in the changing room, as clean next jobs out of mistakes. It's the same score as the drill.
+
Who to watch
Player
What to watch
Dan Carter
His feet at the back of his run-up for a kick at goal. He has said that's where he pressed his toes into the end of his boots and felt the grass when a miss or a mistake was still in his head, so you may not see much, which is the point of a quiet marker.
Finn Russell
The few seconds after a pass or a kick of his goes wrong. A member of his family says in a film about him that his reflex is to smile at it and go to the next thing, and that early in his career people read that as not caring.
In any match, pick the player who has just made a mistake and watch only him for the next ten seconds.
+
What the research says
The reset in this chapter has never been tested as a whole. The size of the problem comes from match data, and the parts come from professional rugby players' diaries and from what All Blacks players and their mental skills staff have described. Most of the research was not done on rugby players, so each time I've said who it was done on. The wording rules in part 3 carry their own evidence.
After a failure, the next go fails a bit more often
In 212,356 offensive plays over seven NFL seasons, the odds of a play failing were about 9 percent higher after a failed play, and higher again on a high-pressure play. In more than 650,000 points from 12 Grand Slam tennis tournaments, an error raised the odds of an error on the next point by about 20 percent, and winners were as affected as losers. At the 2015 Rugby World Cup, where 75 percent of place kicks went over, kickers who had missed their previous kick were 7 points lower than kickers who had landed it. All three show that the two go together, and they can't show why.
Professional rugby players rate the task and effort as what works
Eight first-class professional union players kept diaries for 28 days. Mental and physical errors were among their most frequent stressors, and the responses they rated most effective were focusing on the task and increasing effort. Five more, over 31 days, rated their coping as less effective in matches than in training, and less effective the stronger the emotion. That's thirteen men's own opinion, with no measure of how they played.
A routine after the shot has been tested once, in bowling
36 experienced tenpin bowlers used a routine before the shot, after it, or both, for four weeks. All three groups improved their league scores, but only the groups with a routine before the shot showed any gain in accuracy, and it wasn't a clear one. Bowling stops after every shot and rugby often doesn't.
A plan written the day before helped league tennis players
107 players in Germany, aged 14 to 68, each wrote four if-then plans for the things that most often hurt their play, like getting angry, and were rated as playing better than players who only set a goal. It's one study, and the outcome was a rating by the player and a trainer or teammate. Chapter 8 has more.
Where this comes from
The reset is put together from what Dan Carter described on the High Performance podcast (2021), what Ceri Evans, the psychiatrist behind the red and blue model, said on the What Got You There podcast (2021), and what Gilbert Enoka said in a talk on his book Become Unstoppable (2025). The Finn Russell film is Off The Ball's Inner Drive (2026). All of it comes from video captions, which mis-hear words, so it is paraphrased here. The box on knocks to the head follows World Rugby's Recognise and Remove.