The prevalence of rugby league style defence in rugby union has been a mainstay in the game since the mid-2000s.

Guys like Shaun Edwards, Andy Farrell and Phil Larder lead the way in changing rugby’s defensive mindset when it came to defence and you could rightly say that these men – and others – changed the game as we know it. Saracens are probably the biggest exponents of the league style blitz defence and that could be seen in both of their Champions Cup knock out wins over Munster and then Leinster last season.

To understand what we mean by a “league style” defence, we have to understand the principles of the defensive style itself, so we might as well use Saracens as an example.

You get a good impression of Saracens two main defensive tendencies in this GIF spanning two phases of defence.

The first snapshot is on the first phase, where Saracens refuse to engage in the breakdown.

Munster have lost five players in this breakdown. Saracens have only lost one. You don’t have to get the calculator out to realise that means Saracens have 14 men in the defensive line while we have 10 players on their feet capable of attacking on this phase.

Saracens have wide cover outside the primary line and two men in the backfield covering Munster’s possible kick options on this phase. Spencer – marked here – covers snipes around the fringes and allows looser pillars in Saracens system, which adds to their inside line speed.

On the next phase, we can see Itoje making a strong go for the ball due to a bit of separation between Munster’s carrier and ruck support.

This slowed the ball well and allowed Saracens time to reset, which killed our attacking scheme on the next phase.

This was a bit of bait from Munster – ruck smuggling – which is a holdover from rugby league in some respects but our schemes were too conventional once we sprung the trap.

Let’s go back.

Munster overloaded this ruck with players deliberately.

Why? To smuggle them three of the four players onto the blindside for two phases time.

When Munster come back against the grain, Ryan (ruck support) and Conway make a hard decoy around the openside of the ruck, Murray sells the pass to that side for split second before firing the ball back to Haley (ruck support) with Scannell (carrier) and Beirne (ruck support) acting as a decoy screen.

It almost works.

We generated a two on two here but Saracens defence snuffed it out because they had too many people on their feet compared to us, even with our “smuggling”. Personally, I’d wonder why we burned Conway as the third man alongside O’Mahony on this set play but you can see the intention and how Saracens numbers swamped us.

What is “rugby league” about this? Well, Saracens’ defensive system demands they stay out of most rucks with big width and mobility on the pillars. This is pretty classic rugby league, as is there inside to outside pressure from the ruck. Saracens line speed is good but I wouldn’t get too wrapped up in it as anything unique. Every side wants to get good line speed in their defence but no side just goes with line speed on its own.

The biggest thing for Saracens – and this is the main thing about league defence – is the number of bodies they keep active in the defensive line. Saracens are happy enough to concede quick ball and most rucks as long as they can keep their numbers “active” in the defensive line. They’ll try to slow you down, of course, with the quality of their heavy tackling pack – they do a great job in sticking to ball carriers and making themselves awkward over the ball from a clearing out perspective. That means that Saracens don’t have to attack the ruck to slow you – the tackler has already done that. They’ll go for the ball if it’s obviously on – the likes of Itoje and the Vunipolas in particular – but they’re mostly ok with letting you retain possession as long as they keep their numbers. They lose one, maybe two players to breakdowns at a maximum and that allows them to keep their mobility in the primary line.

You don’t really see Saracens pillaring up in a traditional way on centre-field defensive sets between the 22s.

Look here, for example;

You can see Kilcoyne and Ryan “pillaring up” around the breakdown as Beirne attacks the ball. These are your “A” defenders and it’s a pretty classic part of rugby union defensive systems.

Saracens don’t really do it like that. Look at this centre-field ruck position.

Rhodes is a single “pin” defender behind the ruck, which allows for more separation and lateral mobility for the defenders to his right. Saracens aren’t the only side that does this – Munster do it on some occasions – but their rigidity in sticking to the plan and keeping their big defensive hitters in the line makes it very difficult to attack against them actively.

So with league style defence filling fields and eating space, what are attacking sides to do? I think looking to league attack is the key.

Harlequins and Wasps have already made attack coach hires from League over the summer and I think it’ll be the new frontier in trying to break open the next wave of attacking innovation in rugby union.

So I went and had a look at rugby league.

Firstly – I don’t watch league at all. I’ve maybe seen three or four games in my entire adult life so when I started looking at NRL rugby a few weeks back, I was doing so with new eyes.

First, the obvious rule differentials.

1. League has 13 players and Union has 15.
2. In rugby league, a player must drop the ball after being tackled and then roll it back with their foot to a teammate. They get six goes of this before they have to hand over possession.
3. You can’t steal the ball on the floor, you can only try to rip it while both players are on their feet.
4. There are no lineouts, and the scrum is uncontested
5. The most important one for this article – the defence must retreat 10m from the tackled player after the tackle is completed.

This is the critical distance between League and Union in my opinion, even bigger than the uncontested scrums and two fewer players. How strange does this screenshot look to you if you mainly watch Union?

When we see League players “blitzing” it’s because they want to take the 10m of offensive space created by the tackle. Two men were involved in the tackle – as is pretty standard in League and League style Union defences – so that leaves 9 players defending the primary line with two guys in the second layer.

When we move the defensive line up to where they’d be in a Union game, you can see how much more claustrophobic it is.

League gives you 10m of free offensive space after every carry, while Union gives you zero free metres. The minute you make contact with the opposition, they have a distinct advantage because you have to pass away from the gainline – sometimes quite a bit away – to improve your position.

The reasons for that in League are clear enough in that you only get six possessions while as in Union you get unlimited possessions as long as you can retain the ball. But the space issue poses a big problem for Union attacking sides – what does League show us as a solution?

We aren’t going to be getting 10m of free attacking space anytime soon so that limits what we can learn from League in some ways but there are a few things that League does much better, in my opinion.

Firstly, the edge kicking in League is consistently better and it’s done right on the gainline in most cases.

This skill is something that every Union centre should be learning and perfecting. The shape of Blue #12’s line is something worth looking at too – see how he holds the inside shoulder defender before sliding behind the ball carrier to then stick the outside shoulder defender? That kind of work could be hugely valuable in changing up how Union attack pods are structured.

We don’t really see this kind of lateral slide in Union all that often but there’s no reason why we couldn’t, especially on typical midfield pod structures like the below;

Could we see Beirne running a slide line here?

A pass back inside from Ryan could open up 3/4 legitimate options wider out, especially when we know that rucks, for the most part, plays into Saracens’ defensive strengths.

Even the way the League structures its pods is different in enough ways to be noticeable. There are reasons for this, of course, in that they don’t have to worry about securing the ball in the breakdown, but there’s still more we could be doing when it comes to how we structure our pods.

The timing of the outside runner’s line makes this all the more threatening because it turns the pod into a “spear tip”. Blue #12 can accelerate into contact right at the gainline and take on defenders while they are in passive positions for a big gain.

Look at the pod set-up at the start of the phase.

There’s a “spear point” at the front of the pod with three legitimate passing options off him spread with good width to increase the space the defensive pod has to worry about. Compare that to this attack pod from the Munster/Saracens game.

Everything is based around creating and securing the ruck, rather than challenging the defensive line. Look at how it’s built before the ball goes to hand.

There isn’t much scope for Beirne to do anything other than hit this up – neither Kleyn or Archer are doing anything to widen Saracens defence.

When we correct for the camera angle, we can compare the two pods layer on layer like this.

Our pod is much narrower, with less scope for actual passing lanes. The inside shoulder ball option is too lateral to be effective with defenders in your phase and the outside option is too narrow to be a legitimate option because they’ll get swallowed up by the same defensive pressure that will focus on the ball carrier.

The space that League has meant there’s more of an onus on disguising running lines in these pods and the need for breakdown ruck support means Union pods are narrower and flatter.

But what if we structured them like this?

A five-man, four forward attack pod.

Our #8 is the point of the spear, with #1 as a ball-carrying option/sliding option/ruck support/passing option on his inside shoulder and #5 as a release option on the outside shoulder with good width and depth. We’re challenging #8’s pass here but there’s literally no reason why they can’t make a 5m pass to a hinging runner at pace.

The key man here is #7, who will act as a ruck support option if passed to #1/#8/#5 while also being capable of handling the ball himself on a pullback from #1 or #8 and popping the ball off to #10. From the #9’s perspective, we’re challenging their range and accuracy here in a big way. #10 (or whatever passing back we want here) will be away from the gainline but also unsighted from the opposition’s line speed.

We want to structure the rest of our attack in ways that allow us to cut off the opposition’s line speed and recess our attack far enough away from the gainline that we get 10/20m of attacking space to work with.

#3, #15 and #13 are our wider pod here, with a lot of lateral movement around #3 as the point of the spear. Our tighthead should be capable of carrying the ball with power here, but also popping the ball either side depending on the call from #15. Ideally, we’d see #13 getting on the ball here to run an outside line to join up with the wide finishing pod of #6 and #14 with #15 trailing his run in support as the other side of the attack resets.

Essentially, this would be a 4-2-2 structure, with a need for big midfielders and strike running wingers.

Have a look at the way that League teams use width like this with active option runners to “cut out” the blitz of the opposition.

They also construct loose pods at pace from deep;

You make this active with Union by sticking a ruck support option in the second layer to clean out all three options at pace while a creative back buzzes around the structure to take a pass and link the whole thing together.

Do you risk getting tackled and stuck behind the gainline – yes – but that’s true of every phase of attack regardless. If you have passing options then you also have the risk of getting caught in possession and being isolated.

Another League innovation is creative backs being used as the central figure in a “pod” with the option of a pass to inside/outside shoulder as a hold on the defence. Look at this double-layered movement.

You could easily see a #12 and #13 taking up the role of Blue #7 and #Blue 6 in this sequence. Blue #15’s sliding inside decoy option is intriguing as well – we really don’t see that from Union sides all that often – and you see how it could be useful against a side that likes an inside to outside pressure blitz, as Saracens do.

If they can’t press out for fear of being caught against the grain and hit back at the ruck point, that makes it easier to pick targets. The deeper and wider we structure our attack, the more defences will have to advance to fill it for fear of taking all collisions passively on the gain line.

Look at how deep and layered this attack is, and how it uses the oppositions line speed against them.

The depth means that everyone is running onto the ball at pace so when the line resembles a union defence here;

Players have an option to expose the edge defenders and get an attacking outside angle to surge into for a big gain across the pitch.

League’s multiple, deep layers of attack are the way to make teams think twice about line speed. Look at this option here, which has similar spacing to a Union attacking phase. What do you notice?

There are three layers of attack, with the third layer (Blue #4 and Blue #2) actually starting their run up outside the 22.

How do you blitz on this? You can’t – the layers of attackers mean that you could be played “around” the minute you advance into the space.

Here’s where the layers fall.

We can work out where the 22m line would be because of the faded markings on the pitch so the second layer actually starts outside the 22, with the third layer closer to the 10m line when this ball is released.

This kind of width and depth is something that Union is only beginning to explore. Keep an eye out for it over the next few seasons because what better way to beat a League-inspired defence than a with a League-inspired attack?