If you want to get me cribbing and moaning, just ask me about the way the maul is refereed in 2019.
I could be in the middle of a eulogy at a funeral and you silently mouthing “maul binds” from the pews would be enough to have me tearing into an angry tangent about relatively obscure rugby laws. Nan, God rest her soul, would understand.
I love mauls. I think they’re a set-piece unto themselves and are almost like a collective bout of jiu-jitsu. It isn’t just a bunch of players shoving each other with a ball involved; there are real tactics, techniques and skills involved in a close-quarter battle of strength and collective intelligence. Personally, I think the new directive that has allowed defensive maulers to essentially swim up to the side of the maul as long as they don’t change their initial bind has been a curse.
I’ll illustrate why. Let’s have a look at a maul from January’s game against Exeter in Thomond Park.
Before I do that I thought it would be good to mention that, in 2016, an amendment to the maul laws was passed that forbade the catcher from passing the ball directly to the back of the maul. This was, rightly, adjudged to be unfair on the defending team and made stopping a maul incrementally more difficult because there wasn’t really a fair contest for the ball. Since 2016, the jumper must pass the ball back through the maul and I think it’s a nice little tweak on the maul skillset.
Keep that in mind.
First, let’s have a look at a traditional maul build.
O’Mahony gets into the air on a quick launch lifted by Kilcoyne and Beirne. At its core, this is lift pod on lift pod, with Exeter at a slight advantage because they’ve got three men on the floor.
With my Munster hat on – I never take it off, btw – Beirne’s lift, extension and bind look really good here and O’Mahony’s jump is perfect. His turn in the air at the top of his jump is really nice and it allows him to present the ball cleanly to O’Donnell without much hassle.
Munster’s maul then builds into two layers behind Kilcoyne, O’Mahony and Beirne.
Kleyn and O’Donnell (orange lines) make up the second layer and Scannell/Ryan make up the third layer of the maul but before Munster can really get it set, Exeter are driving right into the side of the maul.
Skinner – the counter-jumper in the middle of the pod opposite O’Mahony – slides across Beirne and begins burrowing into the side of the Munster maul.
Skinner (Blue #6) swings his left arm onto Ryan and begins driving sideways into the long Munster maul. Skinner is shoving Munster from the side, turning the front of the maul, which allows Armand (Blue #7) and Hill (Blue #5) to push Munster laterally.
Now, Munster are going for an infield peel here – Kilcoyne (Red #1) is going to slide inside to take out his opposite number to allow O’Donnell to slide into the primary layer alongside O’Mahony, leaving Beirne to drive back into the second layer with Kleyn.
But this is messy. Exeter are driving in from the side – and I wouldn’t say that Williams (Blue #3) entered from behind the last foot of the Exeter shove – but this maul was essentially stopped by Skinner’s lateral push. When the AR told him to move away, the damage was already done. Big wide swings to increase your bind area is the new way to defend these mauls.
They allow you to bind legal and then swing into a position you’d never get to legally to effect the maul in a profound way.
This kind of movement – front on shoving into side on bodies – is the most powerful kind of shove there is for derailing mauls.
You can see how Exeter essentially chop away the maul from the side here;
Williams, Armand and Hill clean out the maul in front of Ryan and Scannell, leaving them exposed to the rest of the Exeter defence.
You can see just how much lateral pushing is going on when we play it at full speed.
But Armand started legally so, because technically he hasn’t changed his bind, he can shove wherever he wants because Munster have shoved past his original position.
Munster’s forward movement means that Blue #8 in this hypothetical situation has actually been dragged into a better position just by holding onto his bind. He can only shove at the side for a few seconds before the referee or AR will tell him to get out but that’s more than enough time to adversely affect the shape of the maul in a way that the attacking side can’t recover from.
Also – look at the numbers.
Exeter have four forwards defending a seven-man Munster maul and, because the lateral shove towards the touchline was so effective, they essentially kill off any blindside breaking option and can add men to the shove as and when required. But it only works because they get a two or three seconds worth of lateral shoving to stall Munster’s movement.
If Exeter can’t bind and swing in here, they’re goosed.
With Munster’s tight maul drive in place, they’d run right over the top of the two men Exeter have shoving from a frontal position. If this is a north vs south shoving match, Exeter lose this contest every time but because they have two or three seconds of time to hassle Munster’s ball transfer and set up from the side, they can slow the maul down and defend with fewer numbers in the maul and leave a defensive number-up on the break.
So How Do We Fight It?
We have to secure the flanks of the maul and change up how we structure our maul build.
First – we have to identify our strongest maulers and put them where they’re strongest. For me, that means putting Jean Kleyn as the receiver – essentially putting him in Tommy O’Donnell’s position.
This puts our strongest maul component in the strongest position, driving up through the middle on our jumper and bound lifters.
You still have Beirne, O’Mahony and O’Donnell/O’Donoghue as possible jumpers in this scheme so there are ways to disguise the movement. Ideally, it goes to O’Mahony or Beirne, though. For illustration purposes, we’ll go with O’Mahony on a quick jump like the GIF above.
The difference here though is that we’re going to change the initial direction of the maul infield.
Our launch pod of O’Mahony, Kilcoyne and Beirne will angle out on the drop and plant the ball to Kleyn, who immediately starts powering infield while holding possession.
O’Donnell (#7) will join and bind with a strong right shoulder onto Kilcoyne (#1). He will keep his left side out to take out any drifters, but they’re unlikely on the touchline side. He will primarily drive infield to create a bigger blindside for us.
Kleyn (#4) will bind onto the space between O’Mahony and Kilcoyne while holding possession. Once he transfers to Scannell (#2) he will bind on with both shoulders and go infield.
Ryan (#3) will hurry around from the tail to join in alongside Kleyn and commit to pushing in behind Beirne (#5), who will stay tight to O’Mahony with his left shoulder while staying square to engage the drifters that will try to slide up the infield side. He will bind them first, and use them to drive against while keeping his bind on the jumper.
Our infield direction should prevent drifters from sliding up the side of the maul until we’re in motion. Ultimately, this build has three layers. The primary layer of four – Kilcoyne, O’Mahony, O’Donnell and Beirne – with Kleyn and Ryan behind them. Scannell is the third layer as the ball carrier.
This build gives us four maulers in the primary line to widen our front. This will prevent drifters from sideswiping us without changing their bind. Our flank protectors – Beirne will be under the most pressure initially – will be helped by the infield movement of the maul.
If we go infield first (purple box), we have five maulers driving on a shallow defensive line. If we want to change direction towards the touchline (yellow box), we have five guys who can drive that way immediately. The opposition has to engage from the front and commit numbers because they won’t be able to bind and slide up the sides with this build.
This is one of my theories.
