[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]U[/su_dropcap]lster’s loss to Leicester in the Challenge Cup semi-final was a fairly sickening blow for them, I think it’s fair to say, especially when they were in such a strong position at halftime. As I watched the game back, I began to notice the different play tendencies of both sides and how it pertained to where the game was played.
Kicking gets a bad rap these days but I think people look at the concept of kicking all wrong. The game has never been more physical so your kicking tendencies (and your execution of those tendencies) play a large part in managing your energy. Those same tendencies can even help you play a “bigger” style of rugby by managing your position on the field.
First, remove the idea from your head that a team only kick – or should only kick) when they are “out of ideas”. This is a trope I hear and read quite regularly around the game but it doesn’t stand up to the reality of the game. To help build understanding, I like to think of phases as a hand of cards in poker. Where you are on the field while you play your phases dictate how much you should invest in the sequence. What do I mean by “invest”? Well, it’s like this – when you are running an attacking sequence, you are burning minutes in your forward pack because they will be the ones taking on the bulk of the ball carrying and collision winning during these sequences. Once they have spent their minutes, they won’t recover all of their energy so how you choose to use your forwards minutes are like the chips you use to bet with during a game of poker. Are you running your forwards through a series of five or six phases in the middle of the field for minimal territorial gain? Is that a good “bet” of your forwards’ energy? Would you be better off “throwing those cards away” and resetting to a position down the field by kicking? This is the question that every halfback pairing must constantly ask themselves.
Overplaying your phases in rugby is a bit like overinvesting in a bad hand of cards in a game of poker, in that it generally gets you a negative return.
So you compute the probability of success of a phase to significantly advance your territorial position relative to your current field position, weigh that next to the current flow of the forward collisions and then decide whether another carry or wide foray is a better use of your energy than a box kick or long kick downfield.
In your own 22, you want to invest in very few phases – only enough to move you into position to exit unless an incredibly obvious “hand” reveals itself inside the first few looks. This would be a fairly standard tendency for most teams.
In your 22-50, you can have a little more room to see what cards come up but, depending on your game management outlook, you may instruct your team to kick within two or three phases if you don’t see many avenues for progression.
In the opponent’s 50-22, you have more scope to play. Any gainline won here is incrementally more dangerous to the opposition so there’s value in running through a number of phases to pressure their defence, possibly rinse a few penalties out of them or force a defensive error. That said, there comes a point where it becomes a liability too, so if you find yourself drifting back towards halfway on successive phases, I see no issue in kicking relatively early.
In the opposition’s 22, you generally have more freedom – and more direct incentive – to run through phases because every metre of territory you earn here is way, way more valuable than a metre of ground in, say, your own 22-50. There’s also a good chance of the opposition conceding penalties if you get high up into the phase count, which can lead directly to points or close-range set-piece opportunities. Once again, you have to consider your options with your investment if you lose ground on successive phases outside the 5m line that push you closer to the line of the 22.
A good metric of understanding this principle is basing your phase sequence progression on the point that the opposition voluntarily surrendered possession.
Does that change how we look at Ulster’s possession here? Sure, Balocoune’s spill at the end was crucial but if we look purely at the outcome, Ulster used thirteen phases without ever getting within 10m of the Point of Surrendered Possession.
When Leicester get the ball back, they immediately kick to touch without considering a deep counter. Contextually, that is logical given that Leicester had just defended for thirteen phases and won the ball back in a “flow” moment but how you generally act on turnover possession comes from your team’s instructed or guided behaviour.
“We win the ball back in our 22, what do we do? We win the ball back in our 22-50, what do we do? We win the ball back in their half, what we do?”
Generally, the more expansive you want to play, the more license your team will have to play on these turnover moments. If you want to crank down on your energy usage, you’d instruct your team pre-game to, bar a super obvious overlap, that in answer to the above questions we;
- Kick to touch if we win the ball back in our own 22, slow the game down and pressure the lineout OR kick deep downfield to move the lines.
- Kick deep downfield if we win the ball back in our own 22-50.
- Retain possession and drive forward if we win the ball back inside their 10m line.
You get a rough idea of Leicester’s tendencies on the very next play and how Ulster try to respond with their own tendencies.
This is where execution comes into play, on both sides of the kicking battle. When you don’t kick accurately, you depower your chase and open yourself up to further damage on transition.
When you don’t chase accurately or blow your first tackle on transition defence, you open yourself up to damaging incremental territory losses with the opposition pouring forward. Look at these two examples that illustrate that concept perfectly.
So your kick is only as good as the chase it allows and then the effectiveness of your first defensive collision as the team takes possession.
Your kicking tendencies are also dependent on the context of the scoreboard.
In the recent European Champions Cup quarter-final, I would argue that Exeter never adjusted their kicking tendencies to reflect the fact that they had an early two-score lead. They kept overplaying their phases in their own 22-50 after Leinster began kicking long down the field, seemingly to generate that exact response. Even that principle – getting rid of the ball when you’re chasing a lead – is something that seems to rub people the wrong way. It’s easy to understand kicking more when you’re ahead on the scoreboard because it can be said to be making the opposition score from deep.
But why should you go “off script” with your kicking tendencies just because you’re losing? If you feel you can win a game by kicking after two phases in your own 22-50, why should you go away from that tendency for the sake of “hanging onto the ball”? It’s like chasing your losses in that game of poker in the hope that the next turn of the card will turn a poor hand of cards into something you can work with. I get the concept, though, you score a try while in possession of the ball so voluntarily giving the ball away seems counter-intuitive.
And yet, despite losing by 11 points at one stage in last Friday’s quarter-final, Leicester never overplayed their phases in their own half. Instead, they stuck to their kicking tendencies despite being down on the scoreboard.
Ulster’s impact on both sides of the ball started to dip noticeably in the second half – they just weren’t having the same pop in their carry that they showed early in the game. Could their kicking tendencies have an impact here? Leicester kicked the ball 35 times in this game with an average of 31.89m per kick. As a result, Ulster had 58% of the possession and 141 carries (for 497m gained!) but possession and a lot of carries doesn’t win you games.
When Ulster lost Cooney to concussion, they were still leading albeit they found their lead reduced after some powerful collision work off a lineout by Nadolo and Genge forced a penalty advantage that saw Leicester swarm all the way to the Ulster try-line before ultimately scoring in the corner.
Even then, Ulster were still leading by four points so, for me, they still just needed to stay within their own structures and, crucially, not make any unforced errors.
Right from the restart after scoring from their try, Leicester stuck with their principles of patiently looking for an exit, even though they could have been forgiven for looking to “hang onto the ball” to try to chase the smaller lead. Instead, they stayed patient and kicked really, really well. Ulster, on the other hand, did not.
Time after time, they overplayed phases and then kicked inaccurately. It’s not a problem to kick in these instances, but the quality of their kicks plus some poor transition defence hurt them. Leicester, on the other hand, executed consistently well on their kicks and didn’t waste any phases before going to that option.
Ulster consistently overplayed their phases in the second half to the point that you’d wonder about the clarity of thinking coming from their halfbacks. The thirteen phase sequence that was played mostly behind the initial gain line was a really poor use of their resources, in my opinion.
Ulster got within two points heading into the last 10 minutes because they box kicked conservatively in their own 22, won a penalty on the chase and then scored from first phase off the resulting lineout. That is smart rugby. The quality of your possession over a three or four phase span should be the deciding factor in your tendencies when chasing a lead. Ulster wasted 13 phases on a dead sequence a few minutes before ultimately scoring efficiently.
Right from the restart, Ulster just needed to stick to the process but execution and their transition defence let them down.
From this position, Ulster would be forced to reset and go back to their kicking game which had been inconsistent throughout. With time running out, kicking would become more difficult because the clock is against you but I believe with accurate kicking and solid kick logic, you save energy and put yourself into a position to play winning rugby. Kicking logic, for me, is knowing when to back your carry and when to target empty backfield space, especially on transition.
Here’s a good example of what I mean;
That moment when Addison had to choose between kicking deep to where the space was or going for the outside break was a key moment in this game. If he produces a world class linebreak or offload here, it’s a different story but those are low percentage plays. The high percentage play was to assess the hand he was dealt, kick it away and further unbalance Leicester.
Instead, the next moment was an overeager attempt at a catch, an error and then a flustered kick out on the full that Leicester would use to score the winner.
From there, Ulster needed a miracle and there were none to be found when they got a bit of luck on a break from their own 22 – mostly down to tired Leicester chase work – that lead to a 13 phase sequence that was ultimately turned over but at that point, there was nothing really that could have gained by kicking.
Leicester showed in this game that smart, conservative kicking tendencies are a winning strategy when you are building your squad to where you want to be.
