[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]E[/su_dropcap]veryone’s the same size lying on the floor. In years gone by, the one sure way to combat a height and size mismatch with the opposition was to attack them where they were weakest; on the ground post-tackle. In the last few seasons, that way of combatting the opposition has become less and less effective as the breakdown became the natural habitat for some of the biggest and most dangerous collisions in the game.
When you play Leinster over the last few years you become intimately familiar with this environment. Their work at the breakdown has been the template for their success over the last few seasons and has played a large part in Ireland’s work at test level too. Leinster’s pack construction is almost always stacked with big, tall ball carriers who cycle through tight central phases to unbalance the opposition and provide their halfbacks with a platform to launch clever phase schemes to unhinge the defence. Leinster aren’t always the biggest team on the pitch but their breakdown was always intensely physical and the end product of tight sequences of forward interplay with a “by hook or by crook” attitude to the ensuing ruck. If the outside forward of a three pod has to cut a corner to clean the ruck, they had the leeway to do it because, well, everyone was doing it and referees had stopped calling it as a penalty in all but the most glaringly obvious examples.
When you hit a lot off #9 with a pod of three relatively flat forwards to isolate defenders it’s the safest way to advance the ball and, under the old interpretation, the breakdown was relatively easy to secure so you could move the ball across the field safely. Over the last two seasons, in particular, attacking the breakdown with a jackal became less and less viable because it was incrementally harder to win a breakdown turnover in most situations. When you have to “survive the cleanout” in an environment where 18/19 stone guys can fly off their feet to attack jackals from all angles without penalty, you learn it’s probably better not to be that jackal.
This isn’t just a Leinster thing – almost every big team has had this approach to the breakdown as a key factor in their phase play progressions. Winning the ruck is the most important facet of the game in open play. The ruck is the lungs of an attack and if you don’t have an efficient ruck, your attack suffocates. Under the old interpretations, you had two or three seconds of “survive the cleanout” time where a jackal can be cleared away by the other forwards in the pod but under the new interpretations, that time has now been opened up to jackals to win possession before the cleanout can arrive.
This is what Munster tried – and mostly succeeded – to do at the weekend.
In Derailing The Big East, I hypothesised that the only way to successfully stymie Leinster’s “circle ball” was to attack their offensive breakdown off #9. James Lowe finished off a nice try for Leinster at the weekend but I would argue that it was his quietest game against Munster for some time. I think Munster’s work at the breakdown has something to do with that.
As Sexton said earlier this week;
“Obviously the breakdown was an absolute… it was chaos.
“We couldn’t seem to get any flow into our game. We got some momentum back in terms of the result. To start with a win is very important. That’s about it really. Not too much to talk about. Stop-start affair.”
Let’s have a look at some of Munster’s defensive breakdown work. We can’t do that without looking at a lot of CJ Stander, as he was the dominant back-row on display in this contest.
Let’s look at how it went. First, we’ll look at a ruck directly after a lost Munster possession.
What Munster don’t want in this situation is for Leinster to retain the ball at this ruck easily. If we’re going to lose the ball through an error, the immediate fix is attacking the breakdown to draw as many Leinster forwards in support as possible. The obvious threat here is CJ Stander, who immediately shapes to attack Fardy on the floor.
Archer tries to make a go for it but Healy, Conan and Kelleher will have been most aware of Stander’s threat over the ball. He draws all three players in to counter. Healy gets the job done eventually – legally too – as Archer and Stander hunt for the ball and Leinster just about hang onto the possession.
Once the ball is secured, Leinster look to secure the ball more cleanly on the next ruck – perhaps setting up a kick exit – but they are numbers down after losing four forwards to secure the previous ruck.
The target is an edge carry by Josh Van Der Flier off #9. This is a fairly typical set up from Leinster where they secure the ball at the edge of the forward line between the 15m channels and then re-load across the middle while the defence splits to either side of the ruck.
As the ball heads out to Van Der Flier, there is a clear race between Porter and Stander to the ensuing breakdown. Stander’s position as the pillar defender is key on this phase because of his profile as a heavy jackal. If Leinster truck this up at the hammer zone, Stander is in the perfect position to arrive on the ruck side of the contact point.
Van Der Flier needs to stay on his feet to buy time for the cleanout but Loughman and Kleyn get a good stop. Sexton approaches the breakdown too but Stander attacks in a classic “second-man” jackal, going straight for the ball while clearly on his feet.
Stander’s inside jackal is the perfect bait for lazy runners coming from the same direction as the ruck. Porter arrives too late and arguably enters from the side but the penalty is given against Leinster for holding on. I suspect that this would have been a penalty earlier this year too but it should inform you for the rest of the article – the time between the carrier hitting the deck and heavy ruck support arriving at the cleanout are crucial factors in the breakdown battle.
This was a transition breakdown, so let’s have a look at settled phase play. This should look very familiar to regular Leinster watchers: tight phase play off #9 with multiple latchers as they progress across the face of the defence between the 15m lines.
This ends up as a penalty to Leinster – Archer’s loss of balance on the second ruck was a bad picture – but look at Stander’s positioning as the pillar defender again. CJ buzzes over the first ruck which draws Porter to the contact point rather than as a ball-carrying asset. On the next ruck, Porter enters from the side again but Archer’s picture of going straight off his feet is the primary picture the referee sees. Stander had a great look at another jackal attempt up against Robbie Henshaw but Archer’s intervention unbalances him.
Another close call but it’s a clear penalty to Leinster for Archer’s loss of balance.
Here’s an example of Munster’s work on the second phase of a Leinster scrum sequence. O’Donnell makes the stop on Fardy as the inside defender with Stander leading the line speed off the ruck. Stander then attacks Fardy on the floor as the second man. He draws three Leinster forwards to the breakdown.
Again, you could argue that Porter enters from the side again in this example. Look for the squaring of the hips towards the try line before entry – it isn’t there in this instance – but Brace doesn’t call it. At this stage, Stander is drawing multiple Leinster defenders out of their structure and towards the breakdown. He almost gets a lift on the ball – he clamps instead, which isn’t what referees are looking for – but Leinster’s immediate plans post scrum are disrupted.
What do we want from attacking the breakdown according to the Red Eye last week? Sexton taking on more ball and Munster blitzing off the line with a favourable matchup. This is exactly that picture.
Ringrose fumbles the ball under pressure and Munster surge through onto the ball, pressurising the Leinster recycle and unsettling the planned routes of the supporting forwards. “Do we swarm the breakdown or cycle into shape?”
Leinster go to Sexton again straight from the breakdown and he finds Larmour but he runs straight into Munster traffic. O’Mahony chops him down and Stander latches straight onto the ball.
McGrath is shouting for an “off feet” call here but Stander gets his hands on the ball first trying to lift. Larmour is trying to “body ball” this but Stander clearly has his hands on the ball trying to play it. Under the new interpretations, this is clearly holding on and a Munster penalty.
This breakdown pressure is all happening in an environment where most Leinster rucks are seeing a hard contest. Damian De Allende was particularly strong in this area of the game. This kick-chase had massive value-added by De Allende’s powerful counter-rucking. He lifts Henshaw and Lowe off Larmour with Stander lurking and the situation is only salvaged by Porter neck rolling De Allende off the ruck.
This is a clear Munster penalty but it wasn’t called for whatever reason. Leinster recycle the ruck and get their structure off #9 rolling again. Conan gets blown back on the gainline and that lost collision separates him from his cleaners for three seconds. You can see it here – the lost collision takes Toner and Kelleher out of the game.
Toner tries to clean the ruck from the side but goes off his feet. Kelleher is taken by surprise as the outside pod runner and, for two seconds, the ruck is wide open. Enter CJ Stander.
His route to the breakdown is outstanding here. He’s attacking in a straight line, knowing that Kelleher has to shape backwards and readjust from a negative position. He is 100% legal and gets the reward for getting hands on the ball. Conan doesn’t release on the floor = penalty.
And look who’s off on a loop route in the background?
When you attack Leinster’s breakdown with a legitimate threat – and by the second half, that was certainly true in this game – you disrupt the threat of the circle ball loop from Lowe because it’s more difficult to generate the numbers overload that makes the scheme work efficiently.
This example late in the game illustrates what I’m talking about. Here’s Lowe in a familiar position – about to loop off the left wing to the right wing as Leinster interplay in front of him.
Watch what happens.
O’Mahony and Stander really go after the centre-field ruck to the point where both could argue that they have hands on the ball without Cronin releasing. I tend to agree with Brace in this instance that they go slightly off their feet and lose the contest but no Munster player will be spitting over a five-second central ruck recycle. The big factor here though is that Baird and Bent get drawn to the ruck because of the threat of O’Mahony and Stander and they go off the structure.
That produces a low-quality opportunity for Leinster on the next phase. With slow ball, reduced numbers and a waiting Munster defence, the circle ball threat evaporates. There’s still an overlap, technically speaking, but Munster’s defence is compressed in the 15m channel with a covering defender in the backfield even before Lowe’s error.
It’s a 4 on 3 but Munster are comfortable in that we are secure on the inside channel and can shuffle out to the wider threat, safe in the knowledge that Hanrahan is covering any break in the backfield. Even if the pass to Larmour was perfect, Earls has a positive defensive angle to make the tackle with JJ closing the door on an offload if the pass makes it out of the tackle.
Leinster’s ruck completion rate was 91% – that’s 73 ruck wins out of 83. To give you some context, when Leinster beat Munster in last year’s PRO14 semi-final they ran at 100% from 109 rucks. That area of difference is one that Munster can look to attack if we end up playing Leinster in a semi-final in two weeks. The more we attack their breakdown, the fewer forward numbers they have to work with on their preferred style of play.
How Ulster react this weekend will be a key indicator.
