The lineout is the most important set piece in the game.
The old saying is “no scrum, no win” and it’s true, to an extent, but I’d like to add “no scrum or lineout, no win”, with you somehow bolding and italicising lineout when you say it out loud. Maybe say it in an accent or something. It’s not as punchy, I’ll give you that, but it’s accurate to the modern game and I realise that I have said this multiple times.
The Lions loss on Saturday fluctuated with the balance of the battle in the lineout. As ever, this comes down to the ability of key players to execute tasks as part of their wider roleset. The shadow hanging over the Springboks during this series has been the absence of Duane Vermuelen, whose absence from the Power Forward role has meant a consistent stream of imperfect fits in his absence, from Kwagga Smith to Jasper Wiese with differing levels of success in differing areas of the role that Vermuelen fits so perfectly, especially when Du Toit was injured early and taken off 15 minutes later.
This is just one example – as a hinge lifter in the lineout. Vermuelen would likely be filling this very position for the Springboks on defensive lineouts as the second lifter on two possible counter-lift pods. This 5+1 defensive lineout is a good example.
Wiese stands in the middle space of the lineout between Etzebeth who’s being lifted by Kitshoff and Mostert, who’s being lifted by Malherbe. Wiese’s job is to read the Lions lineout scheme to see where they are putting the jumper up and then assist that counter-pod with the lift to compete on the shortened lineout.
Watch what happens;
- Wiese gets sucked in by Lawes and Furlong’s decoy action.
- As a result, he stumbles to lift Etzebeth which leaves a pocket of space for the Lions to maul into
- Mostert tries to sack the maul but can’t affect it on his own and concedes a penalty.
With Du Toit off the field – replaced by Smith at the time – the Springboks lineout went back to a two lock structure, with Wiese being forced into lifting patterns on both sides of the ball to mixed success.
The Springboks had Smith being used as a lifter too on certain schemes after Du Toit left the field and exposed why some coaches want taller props in doing so – when you are under six-foot, your maximum lift extension is that bit lower. It can produce moments like this where a smaller and relatively lifter can’t get a solid backlift on the jumper.
The throw from Mbonambi was a little low here, but that back lift from Smith was far from ideal against a counter-launcher as explosive as Itoje.
Wiese doesn’t have those height “issues” but is still a little green in certain aspects of what is expected of him in the Springboks lineout system.
You see small little issues like going a hair too early on a lift route which triggers the counter-lifters or getting his feet wrong on a lifting route and, as a result, hitting his jumper a fraction late and not getting full extension on the lift.
It was far from all bad for Wiese, though. When the Lions combined an expansive throw to the tail from close range with a full lineout, Wiese’s counter-lifting role was simplified and he played a big part in getting Mostert up for this crucial steal.
There’d be no argument from me that the Springboks lineout was reduced in its efficiency on both sides of the throw on the whole, however. Losing one of your three locks in a three lock system and replacing them with a smaller wing forward does not come without a cost.
That all changed when the Springboks got Lood De Jager on the field on 56 minutes.
Here’s a quick example of what moving Mostert to the hinge position (where he’ll continue this weekend) and putting De Jager on the counter produced on identical Lions schemes.
In the lineout and maul, size counts. In the modern era, most teams have found that when it comes to affecting the lineout on both sides of the throw and the maul on both sides of the shove, it is better to be bigger and heavier. Maybe that’s why Adam Beard is on the bench for the third test?
What we know is that while Du Toit was on the field and when De Jager came on for Wiese, the Springboks were consistently able to target Alun Wyn Jones on the shove. How? When you look at the lineout possession that the Lions conceded to the Springboks – front pod ball was generally no-compete – Alun Wyn Jones seems to be under instruction to use his left arm (the one he dislocated against Japan) to attack the transfer of the ball at the Springbok maul.
When he did so, Jones was naturally in a more upright position and every single time he did so, the Springboks drove through his side of the maul.
The higher you are in the maul, the harder it is to transfer power in a counter-shove. Weirdly enough, when I looked back at Wales maul defence work in the Six Nations I didn’t see Jones used in this way on maul d. Is it a way to mitigate against his recently injured shoulder by taking it out of front line shove pressure?
The Springboks targeted Jones’ side repeatedly and, with De Jager on the field, had the size and power to make it count over and over again, like on the killer try in the second half that drove 20 odd metres.
When your tighthead lock isn’t getting stops on mauls like this, you’re in trouble and that proved to be the case for the Lions on multiple occasions.
