[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]M[/su_dropcap]ental attributes are the easiest ones to misidentify in players of all ages, let alone young players that are at the very beginning of their career. Simply put, without being able to tell the future, we have no idea what any player is going to do in their career from a “mental strength” perspective.

You could look at a young Ronan O’Gara directly after the 2000 Heineken Cup final and think that he’d never recover from his missed drop goals and penalties in that game. Fast forward a few years, however, and you have an entirely different picture of O’Gara as a top-class flyhalf that nailed countless pressure kicks and game-winning moments in his career with endless reserves of mental toughness.

My point is, judging a player’s supposed mental attributes at a young age based on one or two games is a recipe for bad takes and bad analysis. Even the take that “O’Gara was a choke artist” take that our hypothetical knee jerker might make after that 2000 Heineken Cup final would be wrong, just based on the evidence of the season leading up to it if you looked at his work against Saracens, Toulouse, and all through the Interpro championship of 1999/2000.

So when I say that Jack Crowley’s top-end game management is a question mark at this point, take it that I mean I have yet to see it at a senior level.

When we talk about “game management”, though, it’s hard to differentiate between overall strategy as implemented by the coach and individual moments of improvisation by a player on a tactical basis. In some ways, the term “game management” can be quite a nebulous term.

If we define game management as simply being an extension of your kicking strategy, then that is an incomplete way of looking at the term.

A #10 could kick for touch during an attack and execute the kick perfectly but if their team does not have a functioning defensive lineout or maul then that would be, by default, bad game management because you have given the opposition an advantage because of your decision making.

That isn’t to say that kicking isn’t a part of game management – it certainly is or at least can be – but it is just one part of it.

Game management can be described consistently making decisions and executing plays that benefit your side incrementally and pressure the opposition incrementally. So, in practice, this means that you consistently put your side into advantageous positions through your actions. This could be executing a perfect territory kick that exploits a winger in the backfield with poor spacial awareness and producing space elsewhere in the backfield as a result. This could be plotting three phases ahead of the defence to isolate and expand on a bit of space that you’ve seen in the opponent’s alignment before putting a winger through that space for a big linebreak. This could be picking certain lineout plays to hit a weaker defender or spotting that a defender is injured and directing play down their channel. It could be sticking completely to the coach’s game plan even if the initial results aren’t great. It could be disregarding the game plan when you see an opportunity presenting itself off-script. It could be realising that your opponent’s defensive lineout is hurting your lineout, so you kick more for goal than down the line because the lost lineouts are hurting you.

A top game manager doesn’t plot a match out before it’s played – they react to the picture they see during the game and have the confidence in their own read to adjust and manipulate events in their favour. The only thing is, you can’t really make that kind of pronouncement on a 20-year-old young fella who isn’t officially in a professional setup as of the time of writing.

From what I’ve seen of Crowley, he seems like a guy who can make play calls and then execute them. Here he is right before a lineout against England u20.

Here’s how that lineout played out.

A first phase try with Crowley having two key involvements; the first pass to McCann on the crash and then the take off the swivel pass from Kelly and the pass to Keenan that drew the edge defenders out.

That’s a pretty well-executed play off the lineout. And it’s even better when you realise that we ran this exact play in the first half, saw the results it almost produced and had the guts to back it again.

Is this Noel McNamara making the call through the water carriers or Crowley spotting an opportunity or both?

On-field strategy, for the most part, is devised by the coaching group (in consultation with your leadership group) and then implemented by on-field personnel during the game. In practice, this means that your tactical leader on the field – usually your #10 – picks from a set of plays or schemes when it comes to launching attacks off a set piece or in a certain situation.

Either way, this is good improvisation and good strategy.

A lot of a #10’s game is going to be deciding when and how to take possession. In this regard, I think Crowley has decent instincts. He’s shown a willingness to let the play develop in front of him when the forwards were making good progress at a number of points during the U20 Six Nations.

You can see him organising structures in this GIF here.

This is a good trait in a young #10. Sometimes the natural instinct of a player at this level is to “impress” and that can sometimes lead to overloading your interactions on the ball in an attempt to dictate play. Dictating play does not always equal smart game management. If your forwards are gaining ground and committing defenders without creating obviously exploitable space, then the smart thing to do is let them have the ball. On multiple occasions, Crowley showed good instincts in this area of the game.

On the negative side of the ledger, I have noticed a slight tendency to get sucked into certain wide rucks needlessly as Crowley progresses play across the pitch. This is just one example but I’ve seen it a few other times during the U20 Six Nations.

It’s not a massive big deal but it is something that will drop out of his game as he develops on. He wasn’t needed at this ruck and we want our primary creators cycling into offensive positions rather than drifting in to guard rucks. There are exceptions to every rule, obviously, but I’ll put it like this – you don’t play Dan Carter so he can clear rucks.

His ability to stretch a space over multiple phases looks pretty good at this level but I need to see more variety in his progressions from screened play to “open” on phase play as he develops. This is something that will only happen with regular high-quality training reps and in-game action beyond age-grade level rugby.

Kicking

Crowley’s goalkicking is pretty good. That’s been a constant when watching him at Munster age-grade, Con and with the Irish u20s.

That isn’t to say he was flawless off the tee, because he wasn’t, but he looks like a comfortable kicker on both sides of the field without anything obviously off with his kicking mechanics. He looks like a player that puts a lot of time into his goal kicking and it shows in his confident approach. Ireland didn’t kick a whole load of penalties during the Six Nations pre-shutdown but Crowley got a good amount of length on his line kicking from what I observed.

Crowley has shown a fair bit of variation in his phase play kicking too. When he needs length on exits, he’s exhibited real power through the ball in all kinds of circumstances.

He’s got a natural action on the ball that generates good, fluid power through the ball, even against a stiff wind, which was mostly the case during the blustery conditions that prevailed during the Six Nations.

He’s got good close control and a natural appreciation for lateral spacing…

… while also being a confident striker of the ball, even in those previously mentioned difficult conditions. This kick, for example, was very easy to mess up given the positioning and the breeze behind him but Crowley judged it perfectly.

There are work-ons, for sure – some of his direct chips to touch lacked total accuracy – but overall I would say he’s a comfortable kicker of the ball in a way that befits his natural athleticism.

I don’t know Jack Crowley, so I can’t tell you what his personality is like. I can tell you that people I’ve spoken too think that he’s a hard worker and that he’ll thrive in a “big” environment should he go into the Munster academy proper.

From what I’ve seen of him on the field, he looks like a guy with a spiky attitude. I like to look at guys after they’ve been the target of some, let’s say, extra physicality during a game as #10s often are. Are they fellas that are shy? Reserved? Or do they have a bit of “fuck you” in them?

Crowley seems to have that “fuck you” attitude that I’ve always seen in winners. We’ll see how true that is as he develops.

Right now, I can’t say for certain that he’ll enter the Munster Academy but I will say that I’d be hugely surprised if he didn’t. He looks to have all the physical traits you’d look for in a modern pro and a great base to plug high-end IP into. Crowley seems like a quick learner and, when you consider he’s been playing #10 at AIL Division 1A only a year out of secondary school, he’s not wanting for the kind of stones a young player needs to push on.

We’ll see how he goes in the next few years but he looks like a player who could be a serious pro.