The End of One Line, The Start of Another

It feels like ancient history because, in a way, it is.

Munster’s winless tour of South Africa ended just over a month ago but it feels like it could have been last season—the power of relativity in action. When Munster’s tour ended with a drubbing in Durban – that we somehow managed to pull a losing bonus point out of – we didn’t know how much would be different by the time we’d be lacing up the boots at the end of November.

As I wrote in the Wally Ratings for that game;

We must see context, but also see reality for what it is.

Have we gone backwards or forwards since the 2022/23 season? The only honest answer is “backwards”. Some of that has been caused by budget cuts at a national level. But can all of the blame be left there? I’m not sure.

On the one hand, I don’t think anyone could look at the squads we had to name in the last two rounds of the URC to see where the issue is; front five, front five, front five.
[…]
At least now we have over a month to sort the issue, one way or the other.

That Sharks game, that South Africa tour, was the last involvement of Graham Rowntree and Andi Kyriacou in a competitive game. The Munster that takes the field on Saturday against the Lions will be the same team, more or less, but with more changes to their game state and set piece than you might have thought possible in two weeks of training, with one full week of downtime for the squad not involved in test rugby. These game states and set-piece tweaks might not be visible immediately, but they are machinating away in the background.

To see where we need to go, we need to have a look at where we’ve just come back from.

Stormers ORW Scoring

	Dominant Clean	Guard Action	Attendance	Ineffective	Ruck Work Score
1. Loughman	1	9			21
2. Scannell		14		1	26
3. Ryan		5	4	1	12
4. Kleyn		10	2		22
5. Beirne		21			42
6. Ahern	2	7			20
7. Kendellen	2	13	4		36
8. O'Donoghue		4	2		10
9. Murray		2		1	2
10. Crowley	1	8			19
11. Daly		3			6
12. O'Brien	1	8			19
13. Farrell		9			18
14. Nash	1	3			9
15. Haley	1	9		1	19
16. Clarke	1	4			11
17. K. Ryan		7			14
18. Archer		9	1		19
19. Wycherley		5		1	8
20. Quinn		2			4
21. Coughlan		1			2
22. Burns	1	4			11
23. Coombes		8	2		18

Top Five ORW Scorers

Tadhg Beirne – 42 points
Alex Kendellen – 36 points
Niall Scannell – 26 points
Jean Kleyn – 22 points
Jeremy Loughman – 21 points

Sharks ORW Scoring

	Dominant Clean	Guard Action	Attendance	Ineffective	Ruck Work Score
1. J. Ryan	1	22	3		50
2. Scannell	1	13		2	25
3. Archer		23	6	1	50
4. Kleyn		9		3	12
5. Beirne	1	18	4	2	39
6. Ahern	2	4			14
7. Hodnett	3	10		1	27
8. O'Donoghue	1	15	1	2	30
9. Casey	3	1			11
10. Crowley	2	6			18
11. O'Brien	1	8	1		20
12. Scannell		8			16
13. Farrell	1	6		1	13
14. Nash		3			6
15. Haley	1	9	1		22
16. Barron		7		1	12
17. K. Ryan		4		1	6
18. Foxe	1	6			15
19. Wycherley	3	11	1		32
20. Quinn	2	4			14
21. Coughlan					0
22. Burns		1			2
23. Kendellen	3	8			25

Top Five ORW Scorers

Stephen Archer/John Ryan – 50 points
Tadhg Beirne – 39 points
Fineen Wycherley – 32 points
Jack O’Donoghue – 30 points
John Hodnett – 27 points

The Stormers game was a pretty rancid performance all in all and our ORW scoring shows that pretty clearly. We lost the ball too many times, had no lineout platform to work with and got beaten up in almost every aspect. The Sharks game saw a better performance, but mostly a variant of the same thing albeit with much improved ORW numbers in the front five, bar Kleyn, who dropped off considerably.

But our rucking isn’t the problem; it’s that we’re not winning collisions.

Going back over the first six games, a pattern emerges after the Zebre game.

Sharks – 1.82 ORW points per ruck entry
Stormers – 1.87 ORW points per ruck entry
Leinster – 1.83 ORW points per ruck entry
Ospreys – 1.88 ORW points per ruck entry
Zebre – 1.54 ORW points per ruck entry
Connacht – 1.63 ORW points per ruck entry

Ireland’s average ORW points per entry in the last year is 1.57, just by way of comparison, although with the proviso that those games are played at a much higher level, for the most part. Those 1.8 numbers post Zebre is pretty great actually. It basically shows that each entry to the ruck produces high-value scoring or, in real-life terms, good-quality ball, defenders pinned to the floor and secure possession once the ball hits the deck, for the most part.

With that in mind, you then look to see if we’re overcommitting to rucks on average to try and explain the general underperformance – outside the obvious set-piece issues. You do that by working out the average number of ruck entries per ruck to see if you’re having to over resource each ruck to ensure you retain it.

Ideally, you want the number to be closer to 2.0 and the higher of 2.5 you go, the worse it is. Only two games meet that mark.

Sharks – 2.3 Ruck Entries per Ruck
Stormers – 2.45 Ruck Entries per Ruck
Leinster – 2.2 Ruck Entries per Ruck
Ospreys – 2.64 ORW points per ruck entry
Zebre – 2.3 Ruck Entries per Ruck
Connacht – 2.61 Ruck Entries per Ruck

The Ospreys game is obvious – it was played in a yellow weather warning so there were going to be more ruck entries per ruck than normal. Connacht too, makes sense, with their tendency to heavily compete at the breakdown against Munster in particular. Against Leinster and the Sharks, we had our lowest REPR numbers because they both play a similar defensive style which is less about competing at the ruck and more about narrow blitzing, so it would make sense that we would have fewer entries and higher “efficiency” in these games.

So if our rucking isn’t the problem, and we’re not overcommitting to each ruck to the point that we’re removing options for ourselves on the next phase, what’s the issue?

Ball carrying.

Munster are in the bottom two for ball-carrying Europe-wide – just 26.4% of our ball carries are classed as dominant. Our gainline numbers are in the bottom half of European Rugby. 56.1% of our carries get over the gainline but when you consider that the top five teams in Europe in this metric – Northampton, Bath, Bulls, Leinster and Lyon – are in the mid-60s in this metric, you can see the gap that we have to make up.

Our ruck numbers simply allow us to maintain the poor quality advancing that we do with the ball once the play slows down. We’re very good at returning the ball off kicks or on turnovers, but once the opposition slows down our possession, our on-ball sequences lead us to get pummelled in contact.

That’s where the work has to start this Saturday.

The End of One Line, The Start of Another

It feels like ancient history because, in a way, it is.

Stormers ORW Scoring

Sharks ORW Scoring

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