You don’t have the season that Ulster have had – decent on the veneer, troubled beneath the surface and recently bookended by a 44-16 arse whooping in the Sportsground – without demand for a “reaction” coming sooner rather than later from the men behind the laptops in Belfast.
Will they get it against Munster?
Here’s the side that Ulster have picked to take on Munster;
(15-9): Charles Piutau; Craig Gilroy, Louis Ludik, Stuart McCloskey, Rob Lyttle; Christian Lealiifano, John Cooney;
(1-8): Kyle McCall, Rob Herring (captain), Rodney Ah You, Alan O’Connor, Kieran Treadwell, Greg Jones, Nick Timoney, Jean Deysel;
That’s a fairly injury and rotation disrupted pack. Their starting backline looks good but, for me, they’re missing three vital cogs – Henderson, Stockdale and Best. Best was never in contention to play here but rotating Henderson and Stockdale leave a big hole to fill. Stockdale’s raw physicality in the outside channels is already one of the most dangerous in Europe and Henderson’s quiet leadership allied to monstrous physicality we already knew about has been the find of the season from an Ulster perspective. There’s your next Ulster captain but, conversely, when he’s not playing Ulster are a reduced force, physically and spiritually.
I say “spiritually” here quite pointedly because one of the biggest things I’ve noticed about Ulster this season and in particular over the last six PRO14 games has been their work rate – or lack thereof.
The Ulster coaching ticket has been getting it in the neck from pundits, the media and fans for their stewardship of Ulster over the past few seasons – Les Kiss in particular – but when I’ve been looking at Ulster over the last few days, I haven’t really seen evidence of badly coached side.
What I have seen is lads bailing out of maul defence, not working ruck to ruck and losing collisions in the middle of the pitch.
Have a look at this from the Connacht game;
Any side can get wiped out in a maul – it happens – but look at those body positions from white #5 and white #3. They’re too high, they aren’t bracing and they’ve essentially bailed out of this one. They may as well not be there at all for all good they’re doing from a defensive POV. In the end, white #1 is lucky to avoid giving away a penalty for coming in from the side.
Is that coaching?
Look at this example;
Look at every Ulster forwards’ body position here; they’re all too high, they aren’t bracing, and only Henderson making a big stop after the initial shove stops Connacht from marching another 10m.
Here’s another one;
We don’t see the start of this maul due to the camera work, but two things are apparent to me here;
(1) White #3 and #6 are a non-factor in this maul and, even though we didn’t see it, their end body positions show me that they started defending this badly. White #6 looks like he’s working but he’s just along for the ride on this one.
White #3 is burning all his energy defending a removable part of the attacking maul, which means that he’s not actually doing anything useful here at all.
(2) When Ian Henderson isn’t counter shoving, Connacht accelerate incrementally.
Is this a coaching problem?
Has Jono Gibbes – Ulster’s head coach, let’s not forget – and a former forwards coach with ASM and a three-time European Cup-winning forwards coach at Leinster forgotten how to coach maul defence in the time it took him to move from Clermont-Ferrand to Belfast?
I mean, look at the above example; Connacht don’t even get any real initial momentum after the setup but still plough through Ulster. From an Ulster perspective, this is unacceptable forward play. They certainly aren’t being coached that way – so is this a case of the players not taking the coaching out onto the pitch?
Ulster had Henderson and Diack in the second row for the Connacht game. The presence of Diack – nominally a back-row – will be listed in mitigation for this mauling performance but he’s far from a powder puff forward; he’s 6’5″ and 17.5 stone.
Will the addition of O’Connor and Treadwell be a net benefit to Ulster’s maul defence without Henderson? Les Kiss will certainly hope so.
Either way, I’d be targeting Ulster’s maul defence as a key area of attack in this game – especially with Henderson missing. If Munster can get any kind of regular lineout chain going, I think there’s potential for real gain.
Defence
One of the main issues I’ve seen with Ulster this season has been their defence, especially in the league and especially at home. They’ve conceded 119 points at home this season so far – that’s the fourth worst in the PRO14 behind the Southern Kings, the Cheetahs and Zebre.
That comes from a combination of things – there are missed tackles, sure – but it’s their defensive decision making that has been the most problematic aspect of their season.
Look at this example from the Connacht game.
Are you seeing the issue here?
Two Connacht attackers are drawing multiple Ulster defenders on a nothing wide phase.
All of the Ulster defenders in this white box are focused on what is, essentially, a non-threatening defensive scenario. The real threat is coagulating on the big openside play, but Ulster haven’t read it.
On this phase, Ulster have to attack the breakdown to draw Connacht players out of the attacking line. This is a setup play from Connacht – they aren’t going to score a try, or even a linebreak, from this move as they don’t have the numbers, bar a defensive slip.
What they want to do here is draw Ulster across to this ruck, expose the midfield, and then expose them with width.
Ulster have to attack this breakdown aggressively. Instead, this happens;
Nothing. Ulster have four players on a wide ruck looking at two Connacht players. Nobody is reading the situation – there are no Connacht tight carry options so why not attack this breakdown?
By the time Connacht make one pass from the ruck, these 5 Ulster defenders are out of the game.
By the time Connacht make their second pass;
When Dillane makes his pass, Ulster are in massive trouble;
All too often, Ulster are dragged to one side and exposed on the reverse play like this – it’s a near constant theme in their work this season. This tendency exposes the guys in the numbers down half of the pitch to missed tackles and big reads.
How does this benefit Munster?
First, let’s look at the team we’ve selected;
I’ll go over my thoughts on this in the podcast but keep the numbers for reference.
Now – have a look at Ulster’s team selection above; they’ve picked two relatively small wingers in Lyttle and Gilroy. Add in Louis Ludik at 13 and you’ve got an opportunity to attack Ulster in a similar way to Connacht in this play.
Hitting wide from a centre field ruck and then catching them on the other side of the field on the next phase.
If you station Cloete or O’Donoghue in a wide channel alongside the likes of Wootton and Earls, Ulster may be vulnerable to overstacking in defence on that side because of the lack of pace in their forward pack.
In practice, this means that Ulster’s pack tend to take shortcuts.
This is, in part, down to work rate issues but also from a desire to compensate for issues in their edge defence – especially when Stockdale isn’t playing and Ludik is playing at 13.
I think this kind of sequence is something that might get a bit of joy;
First phase might be any kind of hit up in midfield that draws a tackle from someone like Deysel, O’Connor or any of the Ulster front row. You wouldn’t have to get massive gainline for this, just quick ball. Once you get that quick ball, you’d hit O’Donoghue in the trams like above on whatever side that Ludik is defending. If you trap Ludik on this side of the field, Ulster will overcompensate with by sending their forwards into that half of the field.
The first ruck on this side of the field is the key one – no better men than Wootton and Earls for that. If this ruck draws Ulster’s pack like the above image and leaves Deysel and the majority of their front row in midfield, we can go with the reverse play.
Get the ball to Cloete or Nash on the other side of the field. It involves some midfield handling from Holland, but he’s shown again and again that he’s more than capable of doing that to a high level. The final piece is Zebo making one of those trademark medium-long range passes to space but if we can do that, Ulster have shown again and again this season that they give up that space. Taking it is a lot harder than writing it, so we’ll see if it happens.
