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like not staying on your feet in a ruck, not releasing the ball in a ruck, high tackle, offside …
    ‘I’ll come back to that another day. Anyway, the kicker can get three points if he scores so they can really add up for a team. The last way of scoring is the dropped goal. Sometimes if you’re on the attack and you just can’t break through the defence for a try, it can be better to just take your points. It’s three points for a drop, so it’s not to be sneezed at. The attack will usually prepare for it at a scrum, by having the out-half move back to give himself a better chance of getting the kick away. The scrum half will get the ball back as fast as he can.’
    Eoin nodded.
    ‘The out-half has to take the ball cleanly, steady himself , drop the ball so it hits the ground, and as soon as it does so he has to kick it high and straight between the posts. It’s a brilliant skill and can be amazing to watch,’ went on Alan. ‘If a team is on the attack in the last few seconds of a match – and are only a couple of points behind – it will try to work the play into a position as near as it can to the posts before it sets up a drop.’
    ‘I’m glad I have the easy job at the back then,’ joked Eoin.
    ‘I wouldn’t speak too soon,’ said Alan, ‘I’d say Bandy was licking his lips that time you did the GAA thing. You should practice drop-kicking. You never know when you’ll need it.’ 

C HAPTER 7
    T he next morning Eoin, Alan and Rory walked across to their classroom together. They noticed a huddle around the notice board just inside the door, and the crowd parted as Eoin arrived. News had obviously spread of his spat with Richie Duffy.
    ‘Woo hoo,’ said Alan, ‘We’re all back on the 13Cs for the first game on Saturday.’
    Eoin smiled, seeing his name written beside the words ‘full-back’ for the first time.
    Alan was on the right wing and Rory was scrum-half.
    The next two days passed in a blur for Eoin, and he concentrated hard at practice, terrified he would make a big mistake.
    Alan continued his training course, explaining the shape of a rugby pitch and what all the lines were for.

    ‘OK, Eoin,’ he started, ‘the outside lines are just the same as soccer or GAA – they’re called the touchline.’
    ‘We call it the sideline in GAA,’ came back Eoin.
    ‘Sorry, I forgot that you do things differently down there. You have this game called “ foot -ball”, which involves using your hands…’
    ‘Get on with it!’ snapped Eoin, with a grin.
    ‘Anyway, the sidelines are along the side here. If the ball goes out over them it’s a line-out. The forwards line up and the hooker throws the ball in straight between them. He’ll use a code to tell his team who he’s going to throw to so they can time their jump. You saw the guys practising them yesterday.’
    ‘Yeah, but they weren’t doing that lifting up thing they do in the Six Nations,’ quizzed Eoin.
    ‘No, that’s not allowed in our rugby. I think you’re allowed do it when you get to the Senior Cup Team – we call it the SCT – but it’s too dangerous for Under 13s.’
    ‘The line at the very end is called the end-line. The ball is dead when it goes out over that. The line before that – the one with the posts on it – is the goal-line. To score a try you have to touch the ball in the area between the try-line and the end-line. The line down the middle is the half-way line, and ten metres eitherside of that is the ten-metre line. When there’s a kick off from half-way the ball has to go over that. The other line is between that and the try-line – it’s called “the twenty-two ” because it’s twenty-two metres out from the posts. It’s very important for a full back to know where his own twenty-two is.’
    ‘Why’s that?’ asked Eoin.
    ‘Well, the main thing is that when you kick for touch you have to keep inside that line. It means you kick the ball straight out and the lineout is taken where the ball