How do you design a lineout strike to hit a specific target?

It depends on a few factors. Where are you hitting? Why are you hitting it? What assets do you have to manoeuvre the strike? At the very top level of the game, getting your pieces into position and smoothly closing off all the doors until you get the isolation is the goal but it’s not as easy as it might seem.

Against Wales, I felt that attacking the positioning and defensive behaviours of Nick Tompkins would be a solid entry point for Ireland to go after, especially on set-piece and it played out like that on the day.

Ultimately, this is the picture we want to create over and over again, be it off the set-piece or in settled phase play.

Isolated edge defenders standing up or turning their shoulders in while we try to work a 3-2 isolation in that 15m tram space. It isn’t that Tompkins is a bad defender – far from it, he’s actually a really good stopper – it’s that on his first start at this level in the most difficult spot to defend on the field, there’s always going to be moments of hesitancy, unfamiliarity and positional confusion. Our job is to create as many of those moments as possible but it isn’t as simple as bombing the ball out to the edge as quickly as possible.

So how would you do it from a lineout?

Here’s a good example of how Ireland did it, albeit without a massively successful end outcome. I chose to look at this one because of the multiple moving parts and complexity of the scheme.

First, the lineout itself.

It’s a four-man lineout with a quick jump feed featuring Healy, O’Mahony, Henderson and Ryan.

Why do we want a quick ball? I think it’s because we want to set an initial picture for the Welsh defence before launching the scheme and starting their defensive movement early.

The first picture the seven primary line Welsh defenders see is a big four-man overload in the 10 space off the lineout.

Once Ireland trigger the lineout – and we get up, down and out in less than two seconds – Wales have to come up hard to close the space but what we don’t want is the Welsh numbers sliding over onto the posts right side of the pitch as Ireland see it.

To ensure we get the right picture, we need to split the Welsh defence right down the middle. We do that through the pass and sleight of hand to set trap defenders.

First, the pass.

This is a superb pass from Murray to get Aki out into the middle of the field with Stander on his shoulder. We need to retain possession here and get parity on the gainline at the very least.

James Ryan arrival line, ontop of Stander’s clear and secure of the breakdown is vital. Stander’s role is obvious but Ryan’s work to get around to the breakdown is a key part of setting a defensive sticking point for Wyn Jones, Aaron Wainright, and Ken Owens.

They have to worry about the possibility of a Murray break or a free pick and run from Ryan in this wider space.

The blindside of this central position must also be packed with possible options to keep a healthy number of Welsh defenders in situ. That’s what Jacob Stockdale’s feint line was looking to draw. Watch the GIF again and look at what Stockdale does.

He starts in the overload pod but once the pass is made, he drifts back to the blindside where he’s immediately clocked by Alun Wyn Jones and Tomos Williams.

At the far end, we can already see the space we want to preserve developing around Tompkins as Aki takes the first contact. We’ll need to keep that in place for the next phase.

This is where we talk about ball-carrying assets. The positioning of Tadhg Furlong in the initial scheme was pretty interesting, especially when considered in the context of where he was positioned in the middle two of our 1-3-2-2 pod against Scotland.

Here he is.

That’s really wide for Furlong but it makes complete sense. Think of the guy you’d least like to be tackling with a 15m run up in the Irish team – it’s Stander or Furlong, right?

His presence as a wide carrying asset in this scheme creates a natural “pocket” outside Parkes because, in a scenario where Furlong takes this ball on first phase, you’d want to go inside to out to try and stop Furlong.

When we come to the next phase, we can see Ireland beginning to narrow the focus of the attack and close the doors to reveal the planned isolation. Let’s have a look at how it developed.

It creates the exact scenario planned and leads to a good gain on the play, albeit without a massive linebreak.

How did it work? It worked off two basic tenets.

Furlong will hold the inside defenders and Van Der Flier will chop out Parkes at the edge to create the isolation.

When we look at the play itself – a Furlong swivel out to Sexton – we can see the real detail of the play.

Sexton and Van Der Flier will pinch Parkes and the pass to Henshaw will open up a carry, a pass to Larmour against Adams or a pass over the top to Conway. This was the key moment. Faletau and Wainright are dead on the phase. Parkes has been stuck.

It created a decision for Tompkins and, while he made a good decision here, he decisively lost the contact.

For me, I’d have liked Van Der Flier to catch Parkes on the outside shoulder with his option line.

That would have increased our isolation options on the outside that little bit more. He was going for it but got his angle slightly off on the run in.

This two-phase ineout scheme worked almost perfectly and it’ll be something that Ireland could well look to duplicate against England in two weeks.