When I saw Argentina had named a three lock pack against Ireland last weekend, I was all but certain that Ireland would find it way more difficult to launch from the lineout itself and build the maul platform that has been our core point-scoring mechanic for most of the last year.
If you can stop Ireland at the lineout and stop us up at the maul, you’ll go a long way to lessen our impact around the field because it’s our core starter play and where most of our attacking complexity is built on. Why would selecting a three-lock pack affect Ireland’s execution of this play mechanic? And what is the difference between using a three-lock pack and a two-lock pack?
To understand where Argentina failed, we must first understand what they attempted to do in the first place or, at the very least, understand the concept behind it.
Three Lock Pack
When you select three players with a lock forward profile in your pack, you are making a statement of what you intend to do on both sides of the ball. To know what that statement is, we have to look at what a lock forward brings you in a general sense without going too deep into role variety.
At a very basic level, you are telling the opposition that you are focusing on the lineout by picking three specialist jumpers/lifters and doubling down on your ability to dominate your own throw on a reduced lineout – you can run a varied lineout on three or four forwards allowing you to stack options elsewhere – and run a credible offensive maul threat on five-man lineout schemes. You are also telling the opposition that you have the height and inclination to go after their lineout in the air and the specialist heft to stop any forward motion in the maul.
Stopping forward motion in the maul is important.
I know, duh, right?
Preventing the opposition from moving forward is an obvious aim when defending a close-range lineout drive but establishing a strong maul defence early also limits the scope of the attack’s ability to break or spin off the back of their maul feints because if the defending side knows they can stop the maul anywhere they can be more aggressive with their maul flank defence.
This is a good example of what Ireland does really well off an established maul and pretty clean lineout possession. Josh Van Der Flier can break with real pace and zip around the corner into the pocket of space between the outside defending forwards and the engaged maul defenders.
When you’ve got guys like Van Der Flier and Kelleher – in particular – looping around the outside of a maul with engaged defenders gets you gainline and, with that gainline, you have a plethora of options especially off a shortened 5+1 lineout.
Ireland are excellent at exerting gravity on the opposition from positions just like this and getting more bang for our buck from our carrying roster. It produces more one on ones, more collisions on our terms and allows us to use our “cruiser weight” carrying roster on the front foot.
If you watch Ireland repeatedly, you’ll see us running that “trident” around the corner with Lowe, Henshaw or Doris offering impact options on the inside and outside, with Ireland’s maul forwards dropping into pods on either side of the contact point.
For Argentina, the key was to slow the momentum of these maul “slingshots” by making our chain of possession from the throw, to the top of the lineout, to the maul itself.
If you can stop Ireland’s 5 man, or 5+1 lineouts you go a long way to stopping these plays at the source or at least mitigating their impact once we sling around the corner.
The Impact of Strategy
Argentina selected a back five to heavily contest at the lineout and maul. I had assumed that Marcos Kremer would take the role of the third lock in their shortened lineout defence sets but they actually kept him as a midfield hitter off the lineout with Santiago Grondona used in the core contesting unit.
You could tell that Argentina were really going for the idea of contesting in the air here but I’d wonder about the wisdom of doing that on your very first defensive lineout so close to your own try line.
Let’s look at how it played out.
An Irish try. Elements of this try are what we understand to be typical of the risk/reward of contesting in the air this close to your own line. When three players launch into the air, those same three players cannot be an effective counter-maul unit. Those reasons are exacerbated when it’s a five-man lineout because those three players are your core lineout defence. You are essentially gambling on disrupting the ball in the air so that the maul isn’t a factor.
When we look at the sequence right up to the throw/catch, you can see really good Irish fundamentals. The scheme is very simple, really. It’s a late walk-up, with Beirne stepping back into Ryan’s slot after Ryan cuts out to be lifted at the back by O’Mahony.
Lavanini is a little late to the read in my opinion. You can see him really watching the feet to get an idea of the launch position but Beirne has done really to disguise his action. Porter gets into a deep lifting position really well and Lavanini can’t match it. Most of the counter-jump is down to Petti’s explosivity and Lavanini is off-centre as he tries to “ladder” with Petti’s jump.
That’s why Lavanini kicks out at the peak of Petti’s jump. To be fair, Petti gets very close to at least dislodging the ball but it’s a good throw and a great take and shield from Beirne at the apex.
When Beirne takes the ball down, this is a try nine times out of ten. Van Der Flier gets a strong “rip” on the ball here as the maul pivots around O’Mahony’s strong brace behind Beirne. It’s a testament to how strongly Van Der Flier’s power is rated here because not every player has the strength to be in this rip position as the maul turns infield.
Lavanini has given up a tonne of separation on the lift pod, so he is in a weak position by default when he enters. Kremer tries to enter from the secondary line but he can’t stop this. No team who gamble like this and give up the space that Lavanini did could ever defend this at the elite level.
All through the game, you could see Argentina getting their read wrong and, I feel, leaving one of their best tight defenders as a big midfield hitter off the shortened lineout.
That put a lot of lift read stress on Lavanini.
Time and again, Ireland’s relatively simple schemes – executed perfectly, it must be said – threw off Argentina from counter-launching effectively. Argentina’s overall strategy just wasn’t cohesive in this facet of the game. They would consistently make poor lineout reads as if they hadn’t even seen our schemes before the game. The use of Kremer as a midfield hitter seemed to overfocus on what Robbie Henshaw could do in the carry as opposed to understanding why Robbie Henshaw is dangerous in the carry from a schematic perspective.
Argentina’s body positioning on the counter shove was consistently poor and when they went down to 7 forwards, they had very little for Ireland when it came down it and we moved them around the place all game long.
That, to me, is the biggest disappointment for Argentina. They selected a pack to compete with Ireland here but couldn’t get the tactical and intellectual side of the lineout battle to work for them. The same thing will happen to every other team who gets this area of the game wrong against this Ireland side for the foreseeable future.
