You don’t beat a team like France without serious, elite-level breakdown work. Ireland’s super-strength over the last two test seasons has been the offensive breakdown and it’s coincided nicely with directives from World Rugby to speed up the game, both at the beginning of 2021/22 and in January 2023 ahead of this Six Nations.
Post-COVID, Rugby as a sport seemed, to me anyway, to be hyper-focused on making a more engaging, fast past and visually entertaining product in an attempt to bump revenues. This never stays off the field because rugby sells what is on the field. What sells? Attacking rugby. Highlight reel tries. Close, dramatic games.
My conspiracy theory is that there are law tweaks and variations that World Rugby implement overtly, like the 50/22 law variation that has worked so well, but there are also referee implementations that they do covertly to influence the flow of the game.
Look at how hard it’s been to play a jackal-heavy off-ball game in the last two seasons. Referees just aren’t giving the same volume of breakdown penalties that they were to the point that playing the short contestable off-ball game is obsolete. It’s no surprise. That game was slow, involved lots of caterpillar box kicks, lots of aerial contests and lots of scrums.
World Rugby does not want that as the on-field brand for this sport.
What they want is the first half of Ireland vs France from this weekend.
Sure, that was helped by France playing off-scheme but that massive ball-in-play time rugby with long attacking sequences played at a high pace is exactly what World Rugby want and they are legislating to get it. There were five scrums in this game and Ireland was illegal in three of them but Wayne Barnes doesn’t want to turn the game into a scrummaging contest because that’s slow, the fans don’t get it and it’s considered boring by a lot of casual fans. Referees blow for obvious dominance these days, nothing less.
The breakdown is a key part of this. Referees will reward good, accurate poaching but that is usually a result of offensive errors when it comes to resourcing rucks as opposed to concerted heavy poach pressure.
As a result, we are seeing more rucks and, as a result, a greater demand for players to resource them. Ireland is incredibly good at this and Saturday was no exception.
IRELAND’S OFFENSIVE RUCK WORK SCORE VS FRANCE
- A Dominant Clean is an action that decisively secures possession when the ball carrier takes contact. A Dominant Clean does not have to be the first arrival at the breakdown but it is rewarded in the context of effectiveness. We will assign this action 3 points.
- A Guard Action is where a player plays a role in helping to retain possession after we have “re-won” the ball on the floor. Sometimes this can happen on a carry/ruck point where there is no active contention by the opposition. Let’s assign this action 2 points.
- An Attendance can be anything from standing as a “kick shield” on a ruck to adding a bit of bulk to ward against a counter-ruck. I’m marking this down as being worth 1 point.
- An Ineffective Action is a blown cleanout, a lean, a breakdown penalty or an action that I couldn’t see any direct benefit for. This will be worth -2 points.
| Dominant Clean | Guard Action | Attendance | Ineffective | Ruck Work Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Porter | 6 | 26 | 2 | 4 | 64 |
| Herring | 1 | 7 | 17 | ||
| Bealham | 15 | 1 | 31 | ||
| Beirne | 3 | 12 | 1 | 34 | |
| Ryan | 8 | 13 | 3 | 4 | 45 |
| O'Mahony | 13 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 59 |
| Van Der Flier | 8 | 21 | 5 | 2 | 67 |
| Doris | 7 | 16 | 4 | 2 | 53 |
| Murray | 1 | 2 | |||
| Sexton | 3 | 1 | 11 | ||
| Lowe | 2 | 3 | 1 | 10 | |
| McCloskey | 3 | 12 | 1 | 31 | |
| Ringrose | 1 | 10 | 1 | 21 | |
| Hansen | 6 | 12 | |||
| Keenan | 3 | 13 | 1 | 33 | |
| Kelleher | 6 | 19 | 2 | 52 | |
| Kilcoyne | 2 | 2 | 10 | ||
| O'Toole | 2 | 6 | 18 | ||
| Henderson | 5 | 10 | 1 | 36 | |
| Conan | 2 | 6 | 18 | ||
| Casey | 0 | ||||
| Byrne | 3 | 6 | |||
| Aki | 2 | 1 | 8 |
Top ORW Scores
- Josh Van Der Flier – 67
- Andrew Porter – 64
- Peter O’Mahony – 59
- Caelan Doris – 53
- Ronan Kelleher – 52
Van Der Flier and Porter were absolutely world-class in this game at snapping in and securing our phase possession with very little fuss against a great defensive team who are known for their jackal threats. Porter, in particular, was absolutely outstanding and bordering on unplayable. Ronan Kelleher was excellent off the bench and played a far more balanced game than the super-explosive Dan Sheehan does in the same spot. Kelleher bullied the breakdown and played a really complete game off the bench for 60-odd minutes.
The 56 minutes that Peter O’Mahony put down, however, was one for the ages. His breakdown output was running on more than an ORW point per minute. If you have any interest in understanding the game at a high level – and I think you do, if you’re reading this – then Peter O’Mahony’s Six Nations 2023 performance against France at the offensive breakdown is one to remember. It had everything. Power latches that lead to tries, regular snap locks, last-second nukes to beat the poach and multiple cleans inside 5/6 seconds. It had absolutely everything you could want from a breakdown first player. When he left the field, he was the ORW points leader and was only overtaken by Porter and Van Der Flier deep into the 60s, more than 10 minutes after he left the field.
A quiet day at the office? It was literally anything but. The roles of Doris, Kelleher and Keenan (interestingly) adapted to fill the breakdown hole left by O’Mahony’s departure and that is the biggest strength of this Irish side. Adaptability. Well, that and knowing how they win games – by having the best offensive breakdown in the game.
