One of the questions I had pre-game was how Ireland would cope with Argentina’s “Bajada” scrummaging technique.
I covered it a little here but I thought the way Ireland managed to boss the Argentinian scrum on both sides of the ball was a testament to the power and technique of Ireland’s pack and the preparatory work of Greg Feek.
To understand how Ireland countered the Bajada, you first have to understand where the Bajada attacks and why.
The binding of the second row’s outside arm on the hip of their prop – which has a tightening effect on the front row – serves to drive the pressure of the scrum up through the hooker into the opposition hooker. Ideally, it’ll look like this.
Everything about this scrummaging technique – which has a lot of complex footwork and timing demands that I won’t go into here for space issues – is focused on driving forward and splintering the opposition scrum right up the middle.
Personally, I think that the Bajada is a good idea in theory but I’m not sure if it’s fully suited to the crouch, bind, set engagement method of the modern scrum. Even in the olden days of “crouch, touch, pause, engage” there was still a hit that the bajada was effective in hitting because it focused on attacking one part of the scrum – a bit like the way a hammer hits a wall – but with the new “bind” part of the engagement, much of that impact is removed and/or evened out across the front row.
What Ireland did last Saturday was to take the main strength of the bajada and turn it into a structural weakness. They did this in two ways;
The first was the outer angle…
… and the second one – and the one Ireland mostly used – was the inner angle;
The main purpose, through either gaining an outside or inside angle, was to get the power of Tadhg Furlong and James Ryan (along with Rory Best) to slip the Pumas forward central push off to the side so the Irish scrum could attack Creevy and Garcia Botta on the tighthead side. Healy attacks the tighthead to pinch and pivot the Argentinan scrum so Ireland can separate the compacted Argentina front row.
You can get a good look at the Irish intention here;
Look at the diagonal movement after the put in based on Healy’s pinch/pivot on Medrano – you can see a further example of that pinch movement here. This angled movement is designed to give Furlong a chance to work an angle against Garcia Botta and Creevy and drive in between them.
You can see the basics of it here;
The key moment is here;
When Furlong gets in between Garcia Botta and Creevy, he can get Ryan and Leavy attacking in behind him.
Anytime that Ireland managed to generate that angle – either outside or inside – the picture at the finish looked the same; Furlong surging inside the gap between Garcia Botta and Creevy.
Watch how Ireland generated the inside angle for Furlong to attack on with diagonal shifting.
Ireland didn’t win this scrum but they won a dominant angle battle with the Pumas and prevented the subsequent first phase from being a useful attacking platform and, as a result, easier to defend. The build-up to Marmion’s try was built on the same scrummaging angle. Watch the hold, the diagonal step and Furlong ploughing through Garcia Botta and onto Creevy.
That collapses the Argentinian loosehead side and gives Ireland a dominant shunt through their scrum, giving Marmion an easy run for the finish.
