[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]E[/su_dropcap]very now and then, you’ll get asked a question by a player you’re coaching that you’ll find yourself answering with “well, we just don’t do that”. Sometimes it’s because the idea is just flat out against the rules of the game. One player I coached in Italy had an idea of faking a break off the maul to take players out of the maul so we could power on against lower numbers. Cool, except you can’t do that according to Law 11.C that says you can’t make the opposition think the maul has ended when it hasn’t.

We were able to come up with a scheme where we would drive a maul infield until we had a 10m blindside and then two players would break off the back of the maul at the same time (left and right and one with the ball) to isolate a single defender on the blindside.

Legal? Maybe not. But we weren’t pulled on it by the ref so it was all good.

Other times, I’ve been asked a question about a certain concept by friends of mine who are huge into other sports but not really into rugby and my instant reaction was to say “well, we just don’t do that”. But why? Why don’t we do that, whatever “that” is? Now obviously, not every concept from another sport translates easily over to rugby union. We have specific rules on advancing the ball that, say, basketball or soccer doesn’t have. We can only pass the ball sideways or backwards during phase play which obviously isn’t something we can do. NFL is similar to rugby in some regards but the ability to throw the ball forward once is a pretty big differentiator. Rugby League is the closest thing to our sport but even then, not everything from League translates over as seamlessly as defence did. I looked at some ways that league concepts in attack might work in a union setting last summer – right here if you’re interested – but why should we stop there?

Why should we limit ourselves to drilling the same patterns that everyone else is doing? Instead of thinking that a certain thing can never work, why don’t we think differently? Instead of “maybe not” we should be thinking “why not?”.

So I decided to ask my sports buddies for their thoughts on a play or concept they think might work in rugby and then try to fit that concept into the game.

First up – The Dagger Concept from NFL/NCAA football. Let’s get straight on what a Dagger Concept actually is and then go from there. I’m not qualified to explain what a Dagger route is, but here’s a good explainer of how the “Dagger” works in the context of the picture it was supposed to generate for a quarterback.

Obviously this won’t translate over to rugby exactly as is. If we draw out the play on our pitch screen, it looks like this.

The pink line is the flattest we legally move the ball from the most advanced point on the play without passing the ball forward.

The lines of the three “dagger” players are almost completely obsolete within the first few steps as the ball leaves the ruck, even if we kick the ball diagonally to them off #9 or #10 or if we wait until the ball gets to the midfield pod, most of their line running if of no benefit because it advances beyond the line where we can legally pass the ball to them.

But this is in a world where everything we do is about creating “width” on the pitch by literally planting players in a horizontal progression across the field.

If the yellow line is the progression of the ball across the pitch, the players (from light red to dark red) show the “width” that we’ve become accustomed over the last 20 years.

The darkest red dots are the ones furthest away from the ruck. It makes sense. You pass from left to right so the easiest target is one that is already in a position to take the pass.

This is a typical chain of possession. Pass left, left, left to a chain of players who are already standing in the positions that they will take the ball in.

There’s nothing wrong with it, necessarily – although I’ll pull out Jack O’Donoghue’s blown route here as a problem I’d look to fix – but look at the detail.

Every defender has a line of sight target to run at. In some ways, the attack shows the defence all the possible options before the ball ever gets to the attacking option, especially once the ball travels beyond the first receiver.

This is the essence of modern blitz defence. In the same way that looking at the opponent’s hands on a high ball kick-chase will show you where the ball is going without having to turn around, a lateral attacking structure shows you roughly what options the attacking team have on any given attacking phase.

The screened runner – Rory Scannell in this instance – is the only x-factor on this phase because every other option has a straightforward defensive target but his presence in the second layer behind Holland and O’Donoghue is, in itself, a cue that can be read. The outside edge defender is the screen cover on this defensive phase in case the ball goes to Scannell.

This is why we have screened runners – an attacking player directly behind a pod (group) of other attacking players – so we can add a layer of deception to the typical battle of horizontal attacking line vs horizontal defensive line.

So, knowing this, how could a “dagger concept” work for rugby. It won’t work exactly as is but it is a concept that could radically change how teams attack. Instead of looking at the game horizontally, I think we need to start looking at the game vertically.

Look at this attacking phase here and spot the key moment for Racing that allowed Vakatawa to find the space that would lead to a linebreak.

That vertical two-man stack of Le Roux and Chavancy in the middle of the field really stuck Holland and Scannell in place, didn’t it?

The vertical approach of Le Roux and Chavancy coupled with Russell’s feint created real doubt in Munster’s edge defence that rippled outwards from Holland to Farrell.

Let’s slow down that moment.

Russell steps and drops his shoulder which stands up Holland. Le Roux’s line completely stops Scannell and, as a result, Farrell has to stand up on Chavancy’s possession because Racing have generated a “time gap” between Scannell and Farrell.

In this moment of uncertainty, Chavancy could attack Farrell’s inside shoulder or pass the ball to Vakatawa. Both are equally likely to the edge defender so that uncertainty creates space for Vakatawa to out-angle Farrell.

When we play it through, you see that Vakatawa is always outside Farrell and always has more options.

Vakatawa can move forward much faster than Farrell or Scannell can shuttle sideways to cover the space so Vakatawa always has the momentum and angle advantage on this play and he is rewarded with a linebreak, excellent field position and Finn Russell had all the time in the world to make a big play against a resetting Munster defence after the recycle.

Why don’t we see more use of a vertical stack of players?

You sometimes see it on setpiece. Munster showed this a few times this season but the one that sticks out is this scrum against Saracens.

Scannell, Hanrahan, Farrell and Haley stood in an “I” formation directly behind the scrum. They moved out of this shape before the ball came out – perhaps it didn’t generate the picture they wanted – but you can see why it would be a defensive concern for the Saracens.

Are Munster breaking left or right off this scrum? In the above moment you couldn’t really predict, could you? Stander and Murray could break left with Farrell and Scannell while Hanrahan and Haley break left. If that produced one stalled defensive line, it would create exponential space somewhere else.

You can see the effect it had on Saracen’s defensive positioning when they moved out of the “I” right before the put in.

The entire Saracens defence moved two or three steps across to match the new positioning of Scannell and Farrell. This shows us that the vertical stack created uncertainty in their defensive thinking because we didn’t give them a defensive cue to read.

If we played the scrum to when the ball was at the back ready to launch but kept the “I” in position, how would Saracens react?

With no backline cue on direction, Saracens would have to treat either side of the scrum as a likely destination.

What if Stander broke from the back of the scrum but, right before he did in a pre-planned move, all of the four “I” attackers broke to the right of the scrum?

Saracens would have to launch their #7 hard off the side of the scrum and get their #10/#12 up quickly. We would need to be really quick off the break to get the width we’d need to pass around them and our passing would be more complex because we’d be passing to space where someone will be rather than where they are but if it was done accurately and at speed, space would have to be there.

This is where we can use the “dagger” concept during phase play. What if we stacked a pod of quick attacking players vertically? What if the edge attacking picture looked like this?

Red #13 can carry directly or pass to a delayed wide running #15 or an inside pass to Red #11. Red #14 keeps ahead of the play in an offside position to support any breaks from an advanced, almost undefendable position if we get a linebreak.

From the defence’s perspective, none of these pass options were visible before he got the ball so they will have to adjust while he has possession. Most defences move when the ball progresses from one group of players to another but what if the group the ball is passed to changes radically after receiving possession?

Let’s add some defenders and give them good numbers. On this play, #13 advances to the gain line while #15 breaks out for a wide pass from #12. #11 goes on an even wider support route but only changes direction once the ball is in the air from #12 to #15.

You’d need quick players for this and really good passing cohesion between the players because #12 will be passing to a position where a player is going to be and #11 will have to run a route that arcs outside a player that isn’t in position when he starts his run.

From the defence’s perspective, they have no idea where the other two runners behind #13 are going. They have to worry about #13’s potential carry and #15 running a tight line alongside him for a pop pass. They also have to worry about a potential “unders” line from #15 or #11 and that’s before you get to any potential wide breaks that disguise the width before the pass.

It would take a lot of cohesion, a lot of drilling and a lot of mistakes before getting it to a point where it could be deployed reliably in a game but it would be a good way of disguising our attack in a world of blitz defending.