You can feel the effects of the World Cup slowly ebbing away, like the late-night transition from mostly drunk to halfway sober.
Ireland’s involvement only ended two weeks ago but this game moves on so fast that it feels like a few months – or maybe that’s just me. Either way, it’s time to pack it all away. The World Cup is done, October is done, and we’re heading back to Big Game Rugby over the next few weekends. Cardiff this week, Ulster next week and then four Champions Cup games in five weeks as part of a block of 13 continuous game weeks that started seven days ago against the Ospreys and will end against the same side on the 19th of January 2020.
So when you’re wondering if [young player] will see game time in the next 12 weeks, let me assure that if they’re fit and available, they probably will, yes.
As for this weekend, Munster head to a stadium where they’ve had nothing but bad times over the last two years. Last season saw a 37-13 loss to a strong Cardiff side. The season before saw a 25-18 bonus point loss. Both of those games saw poor enough individual performances and different versions of a rotten first half that undid any ambitions Munster had for managing a result over the full 80 minutes.
We’ll need to start better here.
Bad starts have been something of a habit for the Cardiff Blues over the last few rounds of the PRO14.
Both in general, and specifically in their last two games away to Glasgow and Ulster.
But that said, I think their position in Conference B (6th) is a little artificial at the moment. They’ve had a really difficult schedule – away to Glasgow and Ulster and at home to a strong Edinburgh unit – and have been particularly hurt by their international call ups. Josh Navidi would be a loss to any team in Europe but being without the services of Owen Lane because of a late injury call-up to Japan and new signing Josh Adams has reduced their attacking effectiveness quite a bit.
The Blues are a team that runs hard on their power outside backs. Aled Summerhill and Jason Harries are very decent stand-ins – and they’ll need to be paid close attention – but put Owen Lane and Josh Adams into even this reduced lineup and you’ve got a very different prospect. Coaches sign players to play to enact a game plan so when you look at the resources spent to acquire (and retain) guys like Owen Lane, Josh Adams, Rey Lee-lo and Willis Halaholo – even Jarrod Evans at #10 – along with mobile, athletic backrowers like Navidi, Jenkins and Boyde, you can get an idea of how Cardiff want to play and where they are dangerous.
For me, Cardiff are most dangerous off scrum set piece, off lineout high tempo lineouts with the ball played quickly from 6/maul feints, and on multi-phase play where they can overload their wingers.
I’ll go over their set piece in the Blood & Thunder podcast, so let’s focus on their phase play overloads.
First, what do I mean by “an overload”? This is when you bring a winger in far off his wing to create a numbers overload on one half of the field. You’ll often see Summerhill or Harries – 6’2 and 6’4″ respectively and both around 98kg – floating in behind the play to create dynamic pass options for Evans or Morgan coming around the corner.
Often this happens “outside” their forwards with only guys like their openside Olly Robinson involved in the wider pods in open phase play. Much of Cardiff’s forward carries in phase play are to set up moments like these as they move the pieces into place.
That’s a 4-2 overload off that wide ruck and you can see the intention from Harries in that instance – take contact and then open up for a pass out of the contact to Robinson or Summerhill.
Here’s Owen Lane running a similar line off Halaholo against Glasgow – Cardiff are in white here;
This is off a maul feint, but it shows how deep the winger will run.Watch Harries (Blue #14) running a deep tracking line on this set of phases against Ulster. The intention is to freeze the edge defence to open up options outside OR hit an inside ball to a big runner like Harries coming against the grain.
Do you see how much is played “outside” of their forwards? When you have a big, heavy and athletic set of outside backs – and Cardiff certainly has that with Lee-lo, Harries and Summerhill – then you can afford to play with a lot of forward screens and decoy runners.
Most of Cardiff’s better attacking phases don’t include forwards handling or carrying until the very last action of the move.
When either winger comes in off the wing aggressively, they often end up in positions like below – at the end of a tight series of passes – to overload the opposition fringe defence.
This is almost a perfect illustration of how dangerous they can be in these positions – a deep runner coming in off his wing and taking a pop pass against a drifting defence. This is especially true when coming off lineouts or maul feints. From a Munster POV, we’ll need good defensive reads from our midfield – Goggin and Arnold are a great combination in this aspect – but the likes of O’Donoghue and Cloete will have to fill a lot of space as the Blues try to slide outside their forward screens.
Handling errors from their midfield at key moments has hurt them in all three of their losses, as have mistakes from their central forward carriers on their set up runs.
If Munster can stop Cardiff on those setup carries from their front five, and keep our flankers free to cover the winger overload, we should be able to handle most of what Cardiff can throw at us on phase play.
From a defensive POV, I think Cardiff can be attacked on the inside/outside of their main forward linespeed leader – Thornton, Boyde or Turnbull – and that JJ Hanrahan is the perfect selection for this game as a result. His ability to change direction quickly from first receiver will be a key “tester” of the Cardiff defensive press.
As with any team with power wingers, Cardiff are concerned about kicks targeting the turning ability of those same wingers in the backfield or on the edge of the defence. To counter this, they tend to leave their wingers back when defending further out the field when the starter ruck is on one side of the pitch.
That’s fairly standard for most teams, but Summerhill and Harries, in particular, leave a lot of space on that outside edge when they’re concerned about a possible kick play.
This kind of scenario can be helped by the 2-3-2-1 that Munster have used in earlier parts of the season. Ideally, more numbers across the field – Ulster tend to burn a lot of players in screens just outside big openside rucks like this – can help draw up the wingers and give the likes of Hanrahan and Goggin space to target with angled kick throughs for Nash, Daly and Wootton.
On central rucks, Cardiff bring up their wingers into the primary line on the side that the opponent is attacking, leaving the opposite winger to drop back.
If you can earn good centre-field position against Cardiff, you can target their wingers’ defensive movements with a few against the grain plays, especially once we’re settled into some phases.
