Hi Smiffy,
In the Nines we found that the opposition were not always that good at cleaning out at the breakdown so we often played that the first boy to the breakdown was to pick up the ball. This actually gave us a lot of continuety and kept the ball alive.
I would often see boys not sure what to do when at the breakdown and not sure if they were allowed to pick it up even when there was no other players around except the tackler and the tackled player. It does not work always and of course you do need to get them doing it correctly eventually. Cheers