Maul breaks; you’ve got to love them.

When it comes to generating workable space to attack, maul breaks are second only to the scrum and, in a lot of ways, they’re actually better because have the benefit of being able to draw in more players to one area of the field because they can move well beyond the space where they originally occur, unlike the relatively small radius of a scrum.

That ability to move is a big advantage. Moving forward is always good but moving laterally or even backwards can help you if your aim is to attack off the maul break rather than drive the ball closer to the line as would be the traditional mauling aim. Essentially, you don’t have to go forward to have a good maul, as long as whatever movement you do draws defenders from where they are to where you want them to be.

Here’s a good example.

Watch the Ospreys defensive alignment off this lineout in their 22.

Shaun Venter is defending the 5m channel – typical enough for a scrumhalf in this circumstance – and their winger Tom Williams is defending inside Luke Price in midfield.

To properly execute an overload here, we would have to draw Williams from the openside of the maul to the blindside of the maul. To create that picture, we would need to create a viable threat on the blindside and to do that, we’d need to extend the distance between the maul and the touchline.

Stander took the ball at Four but then, once the maul was set, began to move laterally out towards the 15m line. With Conway lurking on the blindside – coupled with Murray’s obvious running threat off the break – the movement of the Munster maul created viable space to attack and so drew Williams in from the openside to cover the Munster winger on the blindside.

You can have a look at the entire action here. Pay attention to Williams’ movement.

It almost looks like the maul was used as a fishing net to trap players on the blindside. It moved out towards the 15m, created a vacuum that Williams had to fill, and then contracted back in to trap him there.

All the while, Conway was looking for the right visual trigger on the openside of the ruck.

When the Munster maul came back towards the touchline, Conway was looking for a specific trigger to start this break.

Here it is – a seam between Price and Dan Lydiate with no inside cover.

Now Munster have the potential for a maul break overload. Conway has seen the picture that he wanted. With that space between Lydiate and Price, a long pass from Murray to Scannell – coupled with Conway’s burst to the openside – could create a numbers overload for Munster to attack.

The long pass to Scannell takes out the defenders on the inside of the seam and allows Conway – shooting around to pair up with Bleyendaal – to create a 6 on 5 overload as the play comes across.

Scannell and Farrell are going to attack the space inside the fringe to stand up the edge defender and create a 4-2 isolation for Bleyendaal to use.

If it comes off correctly, Bleyendaal will have the option of going himself, popping to Conway or throwing wide to Haley – but it doesn’t quite come off.

There are two moments of inaccuracy that let this move down. Haley’s pass to Earls died a little bit towards the end – you can see why it fell off in the finishing position of his right arm – which made it more difficult for Earls to take cleanly. It happens, especially when the pass was being made over such a long distance.

Haley can’t quite get the sling he needs off his right hand and the ball drops just short of its target. While this was an option on the play from Bleyendaal, I’m not sure it was the optimal one.

This is where the other moment of inaccuracy comes into play;

Scannell’s pass dies a small bit when it comes back on the screen and Bleyendaal has to adjust his gait to take it. If he takes this one without having to adjust his shape, then I think the pass to Conway to break right up the middle of the field for a try under the posts – remember, the “full back” defender in Williams has been removed from the play – is a real option.

It was an interesting play that was just a hair away from coming off and paying off big time for Munster early in the game. With Racing coming up at the weekend, look for Munster to try something similar as we try to draw a few “ego” shoves out of their pack on maul defence.