Defending against Leinster is one of the toughest things to do in this game right now.
Not only do they have overwhelming forward power and forward ruck support, but they also have the best tactical flyhalf in the game, one of the outstanding outside centres playing right now and a superb mix of power and pace in the back three. Leinster’s style of play is perfectly suited to take advantage of their strengths and impose those strengths on the opposition.
Essentially, Leinster use the massive ball-carrying (and ball retaining) ability of their pack to batter the opposition defence on consecutive phases before releasing the ball to the likes of Ringrose, Larmour, Lowe, Henshaw or Kearney running off Sexton.
This is the first phase structure they use.
And it’s their most secure. After a wide ruck from the likes of Henshaw/Lowe, Leinster move the ball back across the pitch through heavy “phalanxes” with a release option standing as a screen – usually, that’s Sexton close in and Ringrose further out. Sexton will usually stand a little more to the outside of the screen to give him a look at hitting the second phalanx off a pullback or hitting Ringrose for a wider option.
This is the second phase structure they use on big openside plays.
Sexton stands more isolated – away from the screen – but can hit a wider pod of forwards to extend Leinster’s ruck structure or attack the line himself.
When Leinster move closer to the try line or gain good centre-field ruck position they switch up their structure but when you’re defending against them in the middle of the field you’ll mostly see them switching between these two styles.
Munster’s job against Leinster on Saturday was two-fold – stop their phalanx system from creating gaps in the defence by slowing the recycle of the ball on each phase without losing multiple defenders to the ruck and stop Leinster before the gain line, man on man. In this regard, we were successful for the most part.
Let’s have a look how we managed it off the set piece.
The first thing to note in this move is the intelligence of Leinster’s scheme off the lineout maul feint.
Sexton stands isolated from the lineout, which interests Stander initially and sets the isolation play on Carbery that Leinster are looking for here. Once Sexton releases the ball, Reid drifts off the initial line across from Carbery which brings Van Der Flier and Conan onto an isolated channel with Munster’s flyhalf. Sexton’s pass on the initial movement looked the same regardless of whether it was going to Reid or, as it turned out, Conan.
The initial lineup had Stander and Cloete tracking Van Der Flier while Goggin and Scannell would have been tracking Conan’s initial position.
When the switch happens, Munster have to adjust.
Scannell has to compress in on the 10 channel to ensure he gets a shoulder on Conan’s carry to protect Carbery from a contest he’s likely to come off worst in. Leinster win good gain line off this carry but Stander’s work at the breakdown was absolutely crucial in denying Leinster what they’d need to hurt us badly on the next phase.
Stander had to slow Leinster’s ruck without giving away a penalty but making himself an object that had to be cleaned out.
He bought Munster four seconds to reset the defensive line after the initial carry. From there, our edge defence was able to handle Leinster’s follow up phase pretty well. McGrath sent the ball straight to Sexton and the pass to O’Loughlin thereafter was well tracked by Goggin.
The key part here is Goggin refusing to be blocked by Ringrose and shooting ast him to ensure we stayed man for man in defence.
Haley stretched outside Conway to cover a pass to Lowe and, once Goggin made the tackle, Munster were set to defend the next phase. Goggin’s work after the tackle would show Munster’s overall approach once again.
Goggin demands attention with his attempt at a counter-ruck and that, once again, buys Munster reset time (look at Haley and Cloete pointing out positions) and, more importantly, good numbers. Leinster have lost four running option to one Munster defender because of Goggin’s strong work.
The next phase for Leinster will be a recovery phase because of the numbers committed previously and the distance from the previous ruck.
That means separation between cleaners and carrier.
You can see Sexton lining up in isolation to hinge the next phase onto Van Der Flier or Furlong with Conan lining up outside but Healy is separated from the usual three man phalanx by the distance he’s had to cover to get into position.
Enter Chris Cloete.
Cloete pried the ball loose from Fardy but Scannell couldn’t claim the spilled ball. When Lowe recovered possession, Cloete made a superb tackle that stalled Leinster’s recycle for a second time. The defensive work from Niall Scannell and Dave Kilcoyne in the first instance set the table for Cloete to get a breakdown steal. Watch the way they wipe across the tackler to separate Ryan from Fardy and give Cloete a chance to effect the jackal.
This same tactic was used against Munster quite a lot last season so it’s good to see us bring it into our own game.
On the subsequent phases, I thought Munster did a decent job in handling Leinster’s phase building, at least until the ball hit the edge and we saw some fairly average tackling on Treacy.
Look at the mess Stander made of the first tackle and how well Beirne handled Conan in a bit of space. These are good defensive actions. After the tackle on Conan, things started to go a bit arseways to put a technical term on it.
We’re all set up for a big shortside press with great numbers (Haley tracking well in the backfield) but in failing to get a clean stop on Treacy we were in big danger on the next phases.
Losing that gainline while giving up quick ball and scattering three players out of position meant that we had a number of defensive players trapped on the short side on the next phase.
That’s eight in total. And it left a massive gap up the middle of the field for Sexton to bring Ringrose into the game against Kleyn with a tonne of space for the outside centre to work with.
That was the first dangerous linebreak of the game but Haley and Stander combined well to slow and stop Ringrose. Stander, again, does a fantastic job of making an obstacle of himself before the ball ever hits the deck with his positioning under Ringrose.
Whatever happens after the ball hits the deck, Stander will have to be cleaned out and that, once again, buys Munster time to reset, which we do well. Leinster are a little compacted on the next phase but they still have enough about them to run a one man screen with Sexton playing behind Fardy’s decoy carry to Reid.
Goggin’s defensive press is good though, and it forces Reid into a suboptimal pass to Lowe angling towards the touchline with Haley pressing well. Watch Munster’s work on the next few phases as Leinster came back across the field;
Excellent one on one tackles with a wipe after each one to stall the cleanout. Slowly but surely, Leinster get shoved back until the last part of the GIF where Stander makes another breakdown intervention to slow down Leinster on the centre-field ruck.
Munster have good numbers here. Leinster lost Van Der Flier and Ringrose to secure the ruck attacked by Stander so Leinster were down a good few options on the next phase.
Wycherley shot out on Sexton, who popped inside to Treacy who was well covered by Scannell, Ryan and Beirne.
The move broke down in the aftermath of the Sexton/Wycherley incident but this opening two minute salvo was a good example of what Munster wanted to do on D. Wipe on tackles, attack the breakdown to slow the recycle and force Leinster to produce something “off script”.
Munster compressed the line when needs be and used smart defensive work from Goggin to track Leinster’s release phases to the wide areas.
Here’s a good example of it working exactly as planned even when under pressure;
Leinster had a scrum in a great position and when they came off the base, Reid made good ground past Carbery and Cloete before Stander got a decent stop on him without slowing the recycle. But Stander’s presence drew three Leinster cleaners (Conan, Van Der Flier and Ringrose) which reduced their attacking numbers off the centre-field ruck and made the next phase that much easier to defend given Leinster’s other primary ball carriers were recovering post-scrum.
Leinster would hit Ryan, who was fortunate enough that Frank Murphy somehow missed Fardy’s off the ball “block” on Tadhg Beirne.
Cloete and Beirne himself were in prime position to attack the somewhat isolated Ryan but Munster would recover on the next phase. Carbery does just enough to stall the the cleanout line of Ringrose and Beirne gets half a second to do his thing.
That half a second of separation is enough. Once you’ve lost this shoulder battle with Tadhg Beirne, you might as well just start walking back for the penalty.
It wasn’t perfect, of course.
Two defensive slips by Murray allowed this break from Larmour – a rare shot at green grass for Leinster over the 80 minutes;
But Haley, as with most of the game, was in the right place at the right time. His line on Larmour, coupled with his wipe after the tackle that took out McGrath, gave Beirne a chance to counter-ruck which gave Munster time to reset defensively.
The attack certainly had its issues but Munster’s defence was excellent in its structure, its application and the way it brought our strong breakdown work into the game against a side that traditionally are excellent at generating the ball they want.
