[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]W[/su_dropcap]hen you get your maul build right, the only thing that can stop you is overwhelming size and power. When you get your maul build wrong, you can get destroyed by any defensive unit of any size. When the team you’re building against is the Crusaders – one of the best mauling team on the planet – you’ll get absolutely pumped if you’re even slightly off.
In the last round of Super Rugby Aotearoa, we got a clear illustration of the power of a strong pre-build on your maul, on both sides of the ball.
First, let’s have a look at this maul by the Blues in the early going of the game in a pretty good position in the Crusaders 22.
So, uh, that didn’t go well.
But why?
Pre-grips on the maul. The Crusaders have them and the Blues do not. This is not exclusive of maul attack or maul defence – it applies both ways. Have a look at this frame before the Crusaders’ counter-shove. Saders’ #8, Cullen Grace, establishes a pre-landing bind on Tuipolotu.
This serves two purposes. The first purpose is to give you a feel for when the lifter moves from an “up” momentum to a “down and push” momentum so you can lead the drive. The second purpose is to give you a line to punch through, almost as if you’re binding and hitting like a prop as they scrummage.
The similarity to scrummaging doesn’t end there. Look at the bind that Grace gets on Barrett and that Barrett gets on him and the rest of the Crusaders’ counter-shove.
This ensures that when Crusaders power into the Blues maul, they go low, they go hard and they go together. The front of the Blues maul has nothing for the Crusaders counter-shove and, because they lose the initial momentum battle, they collapse backwards.
I think this was always likely to happen, regardless of how big and strong the Blues might be. Look at the space between the front of the Blues maul and the Drive Component.
It doesn’t matter that the Drive Component are bound to each other because they are not bound to the front of the maul. That means that when the Crusaders power into the belly of the Blues lift pod, there is no one there to brace against the impact. This is a numbers business, ultimately, four, maybe five, tightly bound Crusader defenders are shoving on three loosely bound Blues lifters. Only one winner there.
Later in the half, we saw the same principle again on the other side of the ball. Check out this Crusaders’ maul off a close-range lineout.
A much different result. Look at the Crusaders right before Whitelock drops. Long binds to buffer against the Blues counter, keep the lifters stable and provide a path to strike into.
In the previous example, you saw how unified and connected the Crusaders maul defence was, especially at the edge, but the Blues don’t have near the same level of cohesion. Joshua Goodhue is disconnected from his target, disconnected from his fellow defenders and, as a result, he can’t impact the maul.
When we get a look at it from an elevated angle we can see that Goodhue has a grip on the Crusaders’ lift pod but it’s with his inside arm. This does not act as a guide for his strike on Ala’alatoa and, if anything, it helps to swing his body out.
We can also see that the Blues have short binds on the Crusaders lift but it’s ineffective – why? The binds are too short and they are not applying unified edge pressure on the lifters. With a short bind, you can’t get the kind of strike on the lift pod that will affect the space they occupy because you are too close. You are meeting the maul, not striking it and when you compare that to the tight and unified drive of the Crusaders, the Blues were always in a bad place on this maul set. In some ways, a Crusaders try was inevitable the second they transferred the ball back.
