I was watching TV the other night when an hour long promo for UFC 220 popped up on BT Sports.

It was either that or two episodes of Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals on the Good Food channel so I said: “why not?”. Not aloud, of course, that would be weird – I said it internally. I’m just setting the scene for you here.

Anyway, the main event of that pay per view was a heavyweight fight between the champion, Stipe Miocic and the challenger Francis Ngannou. First of all, I was struck by how big these guys look in MMA compared to most other UFC heavyweights – Miocic and Ngannou are two massive men.

Then I looked them up and found that Fineen Wycherley was taller and heavier than both of them.

Sometimes I think we forget how big professional rugby players are (and have to be) in 2018. Even looking at them on a pitch almost makes them seem smaller than what they are in real life.

Look at this picture here and remember that Miocic and Ngannou are both around 6’4″;

Now try to imagine Fineen Wycherley walking into shot and being a good two inches taller than both these guys. Now imagine 6’8″ Jean Kleyn walking into the same shot. That kind of size is the new normal for professional rugby. I’d be a back if I played these days. A back. *vomits into hands*

Anyway – that’s not even my point.

During the promo, Francis Ngannou was describing a moment from his previous fight where his opponent had tried to grapple him. As Ngannou narrated a slow-motion video of him shrugging this other huge guy off of him like he would a suit jacket he said this: “Don’t let me measure your power.”

Firstly – what a cool fucking line that is, especially in Ngannou’s Cameroonian/French accent.
Second – he could easily be describing maul defence.

On Sunday, Munster took Castres to the cleaners in the scrum and maul. Without giving myself too much of a self-pat on the back, I wrote about this exact thing in the Red Eye before the game.

“The other selection that stood out to me was Alexandre Bias in the second row. The few times I’ve seen him in the second row for Castres have all coincided with set-piece trouble and I’d back that to continue if he’s scrummaging on the loosehead side against Jean Kleyn and Stephen Archer.”

“If we can get the ball down off the lineout we should be able to drive these lads all day and hopefully stuff any maul they look to get going early. We should have a power advantage here.”

There was nothing overly surprising about Munster’s scrum and maul dominance in this game. If anything, I was surprised at how dominant it ended up being.

When I went back to look at the game the first 10 minutes was essentially Munster telling Castres “don’t let us measure your power”. I covered the phase play defence earlier this week but the maul was equally intimidating for Castres.

Stuffing

I’d rate Munster as having one of the best technical mauls in European rugby at the moment, on either side of the ball.

The first 10 minutes of this game saw two key moments of maul dominance that told Munster everything they needed to know about Castres ability in this facet of the game but I think they weren’t telling Munster anything that we didn’t know pre-game.

Munster’s defensive maul is pretty formidable in a “numbers down” situation and that gives you a lot of options if you don’t rate the opposition’s maul. That isn’t to say that you wouldn’t fear any professional side on a drive inside 8m – there aren’t many sides that you’d think that lowly of – but the real measure of a side’s ability to maul is in pink areas of the pitch in this graphic;

I remember sitting in on a training meeting six years ago when a new forwards coach was being introduced to the club I was sweeping sheds for on the south island.

“What’s the best aspect of your forward game?”, he asked the room.

“We’re pretty good on a 5m maul,” ventured one of the locks.

“So is everyone else,” replied the new forwards coach. And he was right.

How you maul in that pink zone on the graphic determines how effective you are as a mauling team. Munster didn’t really rate Castres as a mauling force in this area of the pitch and I know that because of how Munster defended the Castres lineout in that zone.

Look at this;

This is a dangerous spot for a lineout but Munster almost used two jump pods to defend it. Look at O’Mahony almost going at the front and Kleyn having a cut at the tail. This is not a Munster side that is overly concerned about Castres’ mauling ability.

Let’s roll it on;

That’s four/five Munster maul defenders stifling a full eight-man Castres maul. Holland, O’Mahony, Kleyn and Archer are the main defenders (Holland, O’Mahony and Archer are embedded early) with Stander hitting and turning it everytime a new “front” is revealed.

Munster are so comfortable here that they can keep Kilcoyne, Marshall and Cloete as cover for the majority of this maul.

Watch the power surge when Archer and Cloete double team this maul with a bit of a run up at the end.

That’s a clean five on eight pumping. Munster would show this same kind of maul superiority on a few different occasions during the game and it told them all they needed to know about Castres maul work. If they don’t have much for you when they’re on the ball, they won’t have anything for you when you have the ball.

“Don’t let us measure your power”.

The first time Munster got to maul, they learned a little more about what Castres were about.

A penalty given up inside 3 seconds of the maul setting on the floor? You can tell that Castres had felt Munster’s power a few minutes prior, can’t you?

Munster’s work here isn’t even that clean. Marshall’s throw is a little off Kleyn’s jump, meaning a readjust in the air and a less than optimal landing.

This means that Kleyn can’t brace hard with both feet on the landing (one foot hits the ground before the other) and he has to give an “over the back” ball transfer on landing.

Ideally, you want your ball tranfer to clamp over the ball on landing so that you can take the ball and drive through at the same time. We didn’t get that here and set up a little late but it didn’t matter.

Off this penalty, Munster kicked down the line, spilt the ball but got another opportunity to drive a few minutes later. This is where we went into the mauling bag of tricks.

The footage of this maul isn’t great but if I show you this still, I think you’ll remember this call from the Leinster game at Christmas.

Munster threw to the front of the lineout, the lifter (#17 Cronin) sealed off Castres jump pod (and created the maul, technically) so Holland could transfer the ball to target Jenneker.

Recognise that? Adding Marshall to the Kleyn/Stander drive pod gives it a bit more punch – it becomes a 3 on 1 – and Jenneker has to bring this down illegally to prevent Stander crashing over. Cronin does two jobs here. His bind helps to set the maul legally but he also prevents Castres from getting bodies across once they realise what’s happened. Nice stuff.

This kind of variation on the 5m drive keeps the opposition on their toes defensively and makes them think twice about stacking the middle and tail of the maul later in the game. Or it could also act as a double bluff. That’s the beauty of it.

That wouldn’t be super important in this game – we didn’t have to go to much extra effort to get what we wanted from Castres – but it does show the level of detail we put into this facet of the game.

Freeze In Place

When you have a distinct mauling advantage over an opponent there’s nowhere you can’t attack from. All you need to do is take out

Look at this example;

This is fairly basic maul possession at the front of the lineout but what makes it interesting is the set up in advance of the throw.

Munster’s spacing between Cronin and Holland keeps Lasselle (blue circle) and his jump pod stuck at the middle of the lineout. Holland’s body language and Cronin’s distance from him means the 6’8″ Lasselle has a lot of questions to think about – is Holland a jumper or a lifter? Is Cronin going to run to Holland, or is Holland going to run to him? What’s Kleyn doing?

Munster’s work in the lineout to this point would have meant Castres very wary about giving up ball to the middle of the lineout and they have decided to gamble that Munster won’t run a gimmick like they did with Stander in the first half.

The other question here is Caballero – he stole two Munster lineouts in the game so we need to take him out of the picture.

We do that by having him mark O’Mahony in the middle/tail of the lineout.

With Caballero out of the picture, this gives Munster an easy take at the front and, crucially, a timing advantage on the setup.

From here, we can manipulate their maul defence to catch them “against the grain”. What else does that space at the front do? It baits Catres to flood to the front of the maul and leaves the infield angle guarded with weak body positions. Look at the direction Munster set the maul in.

Munster’s maul is always facing “infield” towards the posts. Castres have had to run across the maul to defend it and that exposes them to being caught “against the grain” in weak body positions.

Let’s play it on;

Munster forced Castres to stack at the back of the lineout, deliberately left a space at the front of the lineout to set up the maul and then mauled Castres against the grain when they took the bait. When you see the opposition heavy maul defence (1, 3 and 7) falling off a maul like this –

– you just know that you can hammer away at them all game. Munster would score two more tries directly from the maul and could have had another.

“Don’t let us measure your power”.