When I spoke to Stephen Larkham this week about the development in Munster’s play, one word stuck out to me – evolution. What is evolution if not incremental change over time? Changing Munster’s approach in such a fundamental area as the attack is not something that can be done over a long weekend. It takes time, it takes patience and it takes the right players coming through.
To labour a metaphor, if you want to make orange juice in a few years you’ve got to make sure you’re growing the right kind of oranges. This is the most misunderstood benefit of coaching consistency and why it’s so important. Coaching consistency isn’t just about the performances of players this week or next week, it’s about the selection and identification of the players who will play a part in what you want to do in two season’s time. If the players who are at the club when you arrive are who you have to reshape, the players you bring through under your system (both internally and signed from an external source) are the ones you build specifically to play the way you want. This is the nature/nurture of the rugby world. Consistency of coaching helps to develop the team you want by setting the tone of who you want in the group and how you want them to play. The two are intrinsically linked.
If the coaching group, for example, dictates that any young locks have to be over 6’6″ to warrant an academy spot, that’s a style choice that leads to an outcome down the road, one way or the other. If your overall style of play is dependent on certain role sets, they will be prioritised in your underage recruitment, which will run in a three/four-year cycle of development.
This is why coaching disruption is such a fundamentally fatal problem at a club with Munster’s level of ambition and why it’s been a damaging trend running through the club since Tony McGahan left in 2012.
We’re currently in the most stable period of coaching continuity since that point under Van Graan/Larkham/Rowntree/Ferreira and, as Larkham alluded to earlier in the week, that gives scope for the kind of longer-term development that we will hopefully see this season and going forward.
Last weekend, we saw a Munster side that was happy to ball pretty hard on a night that was perfectly suited to putting the ball through the hands. This weekend’s game is scheduled to take place in conditions more familiar to Limerick in October. Rain. Wind. A palpable chill in the air. Will that change Munster’s approach be effective against a Stormers side that doesn’t have as many recognisable names as the Sharks but who might just pose a more palpable threat?
Stormers: 15. Warrick Gelant, 14. Sergeal Petersen, 13. Ruhan Nel, 12. Dan du Plessis, 11. Leolin Zas; 10. Manie Libbok, 9. Stefan Ungerer; 8. Evan Roos, 7. Willie Engelbrecht, 6. Nama Xaba, 5. Salmaan Moerat, 4. Adre Smith, 3. Neethling Fouche, 2. Scarra Ntubeni, 1. Brok Harris.
Replacements: 16. Andre-Hugo Venter, 17. Leon Lyons, 18. Sazi Sandi, 19. Ernst van Rhyn, 20. Marcel Theunissen, 21. Godlen Masimla, 22. Tim Swiel, 23. Rikus Pretorius.
Munster’s win over the Sharks was an illustration of pass quality – why it’s important and why a team who have a high Pass Per Carry rating can suffer without it.
If you play a low-risk passing game – where you have, essentially, the bones of one pass for every carry of the ball – the risk of a poor pass is mitigated by simply not doing it all that much and by closing the distance between pass and target.
The lowest risk method of attacking with the ball in hand is the pick and go from the ruck. All you have to do is pick the ball up at the base of the ruck and run around the side but it’s also usually the area that has the most compacted defenders so it’s harder to win a collision there.
Passing one pass out from the ruck before contact – one out rugby – is the next lowest risk. It involves a pass but usually at close range and right before contact. If you have collision dominance, these two modes of attack can be brutally effective. Even if you don’t have collision dominance – let’s say collision parity – you can still move around the pitch laterally and kick for position on your own terms after a few phases.
The minute you start adding two passes in a sequence before the collision, the risk goes through the roof. When you pass twice or more, your risk of knocking the ball on or moving into an area of the field where you can be turned over increases incrementally.
This is where pass quality comes into play.
If you are inaccurate with your passing in a passing sequence, it can stagger running lines and make the conditions for the next pass more difficult. When you pass as much as Munster did last week, any error at a key point can kill a line break.
Munster seemed to be using more layers and more attacking depth than we have in previous seasons – bar the Rainbow Cup campaign – with Mike Haley used a lot as a passing option at first receiver and as the deep hinge player.
That was particularly prevalent post kick transition, where we consistently looked for real width directly after the receipt of the ball. When we got our passing right, we created good quality opportunities but you can see the impact of sub-optimal passing, especially in the wider areas.
Against the Sharks, we consistently got the ball into those wider spaces but had a few issues converting the opportunities. Pass quality played a part on more than a few occasions.
We were particularly expansive on kick transition, especially when the kick landed in our 22-50.
Keep an eye on how many three and four pass sequences post kick receipt we went looking for.
This produced a number of opportunities in the wider channels that we didn’t always execute. When we did execute, we tore up the Sharks. The final try – launched off a short restart – worked on those same principles.
Those key moments in and around the 15m line are more plentiful in an environment where you have multiple handlers in the backline. Munster used Carbery, Scannell and Haley as regular handlers with Goggin finding himself as the wider passing platform on multiple occasions.
He was unlucky in a few key moments, I think it’s fair to say. To be clear, I don’t think that you have to be a knockdown, killer passer to be a successful outside centre in a double/triple playmaker system like Munster were using here. In fact, I don’t think there’s any reason why you couldn’t play another winger at #13 if they were receiving the ball where Goggin did on a lot of these plays. You just have to be capable of making those short-range passes once the ball is moved successfully to the wide channels.
If you’re the #13 in a system that can put two or more wide range handlers on the ball before you touch it, do you have the pace to make up the depth to the tackle line to attack the spacing?
The Teal line is the north/south space to be made up.Do you have the short-range passing or offloading ability to isolate and take out an edge defender in this space? If so, you can be an offensive standout in a system that gets this width, especially on transition. When you combine multiple handlers – and the width and tempo Casey gets from the breakdown in line with willing forward passers – it comes down to what the #13 can execute, rather than what they can create. Essentially, this is a system that forces the outside centre to take chances or be the last pass before a linebreak, rather than being a fully creative presence in their own right.
So when you see Keith Earls at outside centre on this side and think “why is he there, isn’t he a winger?”
The answer is yes, he is a winger, but that doesn’t matter – at least not offensively speaking in this system. With Scannell, Haley and Carbery rotating as handlers, the onus will be on Earls to just do what he always does in those wide pockets of space. I’d also expect Nash and Daly to slide in and out of those wider spots in tandem with Earls.
