[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]A[/su_dropcap]s statistics go, it’s an ugly one. 64.3%. That was Munster’s lineout success rate on Saturday night against Leinster. Of Munster’s 14 lineouts, we only successfully completed nine and lost five but even that raw statistic is a little kind because it includes one quickly taken lineout in the first few minutes of the game.
In fact, if we count the number of lineouts that Munster completed successfully as planned rather than if we retained possession or not, our numbers drop to 53.85% – roughly around 50/50. It was a bad night at the office at the lineout, let’s put it that way.
So what went wrong?
First, let’s see where they went wrong.
This paints a pretty clear picture of Munster having severe issues getting any kind of reliable lineout possession beyond the middle. When we break down the lineouts Munster lost possession on, we see the pattern in stark relief – of the six lineouts we threw beyond the front, we were only able to effectively use one of them. That’s a 16% return.
So – not good. We were having difficulties getting the ball where we wanted it in the face of some heavy Leinster contests in the areas we wanted to hit.
When we breakdown the lineout by time, location, target and the specific outcome we get even more insight.
| Time | Position | Leinster Contest? | Throw Target | Launch Point | Success | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10:02 | Inside Leinster 22 | NO | O'Mahony | Middle | Yes | Possession Retained |
| 15:42 | Inside Leinster 10m | YES | Beirne | Tail | No | Throw Failure |
| 18:31 | Inside Leinster 22 | YES | O'Mahony | Middle | No | Stolen by Ryan |
| 19:21 | Leinster 10m | YES | Beirne | Middle | No | Lift Failure |
| 36:11 | Munster 22 | YES | Kleyn | Front | Yes | Possession Retained |
| 40:56 | Halfway | NO | Kleyn | Front | Yes | Possession Retained |
| 47:46 | Leinster 22 | YES | O'Mahony | Middle | No | Stolen by Ryan |
| 49:37 | Outside Leinster 22 | NO | Coombes | Front | Yes | Possession Retained |
| 56:42 | Munster 10m | YES | O'Mahony | Front | No | Handler Error |
| 58:10 | Leinster 10m | NO | Kleyn | Front | Yes | Possession Retained |
| 60:15 | Leinster 10m | YES | Beirne | Middle | No | Possession disrupted |
| 64:53 | Leinster 10m | NO | Kleyn | Front | Yes | Possession Retained |
| 78:01 | Leinster 10m | NO | O'Donoghue | Front | Yes | Possession Retained |
Look at the call pattern as the first half bleeds into the second half. We lost a ball to the tail so the next lineout scaled back to the middle, we lost that so we scaled back again to the front. After a few successful throws to the front, we tried the middle again before losing that again, and every lineout thereafter prioritised solid possession at the front.
It’s easy to blame everything on the hooker in these instances but I don’t think that’s entirely fair. That said, I think there are a few instances where we can look at the mechanics of the hooker’s throw as being a key factor in some malfunctions. The early lineouts had a few characteristics of throwing issues. The first one in this montage is an example of an uncontested throw hitting a non-ideal position in the air – the throw looks to be ducking in the air which usually means that there’s an issue with the spin on the ball which itself is an issue with grip.
That wouldn’t be a surprise in the conditions – extremely cold temperatures combined with wet conditions make literally handling the ball during the throwing action incredibly difficult. These initial throws look a little like rotation speed of the ball is a little slower than what would be ideal which can lead to the ball dipping or drifting off course if you’re really chucking it – like when you need it to go to the tail.
You can get a closer look at it here on the second lineout of the second half – watch the movement of the ball as Rhys loads up pre-throw and how it affects the trajectory of the ball before the release.
The ball actually screws over to Leinster’s side, which explains O’Mahony attacking the ball like it was a Leinster throw-in. For me, these are conditional errors; they are not something endemic in Marshall’s game.
Other failures came down to blown launches – essentially, jumps that don’t reach the peak of the jump in time to catch the ball. This one, for example, would class a blown lift for me. It’s a pretty close run thing, actually. The action of the lineout is a flinch – where the jumper walks slowly to the position before bursting to their launch point – but I think Beirne actually gets too much distance between his launch point and his back lifter.
You can see it in the stilted launch where Beirne sags a little in the lift and that’s enough, in my opinion, to lose this dynamic position. Ideally, you want to blast straight up in these situations to be where the ball is at the right time. If you have an issue with your footwork, your jump or the lift you can “miss your appointment” with the ball and that’s what this looked like to me.
That isn’t to downplay Leinster’s success in contesting – they were hugely effective.
Leinster used James Ryan – who looked back to his freakish best here, at least from a numbers output perspective – to great effect. He effectively contested the middle space whenever Leinster schemed to contest and based it off the timing of the throw. Ryan isn’t watching his jumper here, he’s watching the timing of the throw and gambling on position.
It was a smart ploy from a tactical perspective in the weather conditions. Why track jumping threats when the middle would be difficult enough to hit in the conditions? It allowed Ryan to get his wingspan into play with consistently well-timed counter-launches in a high traffic, high value in the conditions area of the lineout.
Once Leinster had put cognitive pressure on the middle of the lineout, that opened up space to threaten at the front. Munster were aware of this, of course, and had to use numerous feints to clear Fardy away from the launch point. The first example in this montage is an illustration of those feints.
There are three feints here – O’Mahony’s cut out jump, Kleyn’s feint in the middle to stop Ryan from following him on and O’Mahony’s short ball dummy before Marshall puts his best throw of the night in to find Kleyn behind Fardy’s eventual counter-launch. The second example is a showcase of the front pressure Leinster could afford to apply later in the game. You could make an argument that Fardy’s contact on O’Mahony’s arm would be enough for a penalty for interference but when your lineout has been heavily disrupted before that point, it’s a tough sell to the referee or assistants.
So what was the solution to Munster’s lineout issues? There’d be two schools of thought.
- Go to the front for simpler throws by the third lineout and engage a full 7 man scheme. Why? Back the offensive maul to either draw Fardy forward to the front sooner OR make Ryan’s “on-throw” watch-the-hooker middle launch an expensive use of resources.
- Back yourself to hit the tail twice in a row over a Ryan contest to disincentive Leinster from counter-launching in the middle on your throw trigger by making three players on a counter-pod too expensive to burn.
Every lost lineout shapes the lineout after it. Munster chose not to contest most of Leinster’s throws in the air to prevent their maul from gaining traction – this would encourage negative kickbacks, especially in Leinster’s half which was a strategic aim – but Leinster competed aerially on 53% of Munster’s throws.
Their early success on the counter-launch shaped Munster’s tactical thought process for the rest of the game and ultimately played a large part in preventing Munster from loading up CJ Stander, Gavin Coombes, Chris Farrell and Damian De Allende in midfield on our lineout possession.
