“Don’t read too much into preseason results” is generally good advice regardless of the sport. It is, by definition and in practice, a stage where teams are trying out new systems, new players and new combinations. Even the games themselves don’t follow the usual flow. On Friday, for example, there were two water breaks in the first half, Munster changed 9/10 players at halftime, London Irish did the same around 60 minutes and Munster made another raft of changes simultaneously. That is not a real game environment so judging it like a traditional game is a good way to get a bad read on things.
But just because you don’t read too much into preseason results, that doesn’t mean that the games themselves are meaningless – far from it.
That’s especially true when you consider that these are the first few games being coached by Leamy, Kyriacou, under the attacking eye of Mike Prendergast and, of course, the overall control of Graham Rowntree. With new coaching comes new ideas, new ways of training and new systems.
That takes time and, this season, it’s time that we don’t have.
For example, last season, Munster began their preseason on the 26th of July 2021 but played our first preseason game on the 4th of September 2021 before finishing up the season prep on the 11th of September against Exeter. Keep in mind that was under a settled coaching unit with an attacking scheme in motion for two seasons prior.
This season, we began on the 25th of July 2022 and played our first pre-season friendly on the 26th of August 2022 against Gloucester – barely a month later – before finishing off our games last week on the 2nd of September. Six weeks of training a known system before a game vs four weeks of training a new system before a game. I mean, things aren’t going to be perfect in that scenario. They just aren’t.
If we’re implementing a new attacking scheme – and we are – you would expect a fair bit of jankiness when you’ve only had four full weeks of training, and most of the early going of that first block being preseason S&C.
So, with the context that the players are learning on the hoof here and getting a lot of new information on board, I think we can look at some of the detail of both friendlies and what that detail might mean.
For example, given that we’ve seen, essentially, two different teams playing in both halves of both games, I think the 40-minute scores are worth looking at. If we look at the first 40 minutes of both Munster’s preseason friendlies, we lost both halves by a combined score of 0-33. We won both second halves by a combined score of 33-14. That is not meaningless, especially when you consider the widespread changes we made at halftime in both games but we need more context there too.
We need to understand that both Gloucester and London Irish played wildly stronger selections in the first half of both games so the Munster sides selected in the first 40 minutes were playing more difficult opposition. Knowing that allows us to judge performances fairly.
Context Connoisseurs
That’s the context of these two friendlies but you can’t get poisoned by context either. Some players did well in these two games and some really didn’t. The first place to start assessing players is in their execution of the system.
What is the system? It seems to be a fluid 1-3-3-1 (a 3-3-1 in practicality) that aims to have a tonne of overlapping and underlapping options, a less integrated pack and backline and, eventually, multiple playmakers.
I go into the main differences between Munster’s 3-2-X of the previous seasons and the 3-3-1 I theorised Mike Prendergast might use here in this article, which I believe is really worth a read, especially after these two pre-season friendlies.
The key to understanding the 3-3-1 system is that not every player will be suited to playing in it, especially if they are used to playing in a 3-2-X system which, by design, bakes in a little more wiggle room to the attacking scheme.
As I wrote;
In the 3-2-X system that Munster have used over the last few seasons, for example, most of the ball-handling has come through the #10 with others stepping in as and when required but with the #10 primarily anchored to that first receiver slot more often than not. Why is that? With a 3-2-X system, your midfield pairing is often on-ball relatively deep or relatively wider to facilitate more width in your forward alignment.
Basically, if you spread your forwards across the three openside blocks – off #9, off First Handler and off Second Handler – your midfielders need to be bigger and more physical on-ball to cover the transit of the ball to the edge in a way that allows you to get the most out of your Edge Forwards. You want your Edge Forwards to be running into mismatches in the wide space so you’ve got to preserve that space for them to execute those mismatches
The one big criticism I got of Munster’s play over the last two seasons from inside the Leinster camp was that (a) we never surprised them, selection wise and (b) they were really worried about Damian De Allende’s signing initially until they realised that we didn’t really know how to use him.
By that, I mean his role in the 3-2-X system we used almost hid his best qualities. If you got the feeling that we rarely saw Damian De Allende at his best, I think the system we used played a part in that. In a 3-2-X, your #12 tends to come onto the ball that little bit deeper because the scheme builds in that space as a default. They are often behind or near that recessed two-pod of forwards so they most often find themselves as short or mid-range passers (or kickers) because of how far away they are from the gain line on most phase progressions.
A 3-3-1 is different. It’s flatter, for a start, which means that handlers are closer to the gain line when they take possession.
In the above example, Racing have their #10/#12/#13 arrayed behind the two flat, wide three pods.
The key to a 3-3-1 isn’t width for width’s sake because that’s the easiest form of the game to defend. The key is actually baking your width into the pods themselves, between the 15m lines, to set up natural corners and scrags for the layered backs to attack.
Look at how flat and wide the pod nearest to the screen is above. Now, look at this pod from Friday night against London Irish. That’s Racing’s 3-3-1 shape almost perfectly recreated.
Pay close attention to Fineen Wycherley as the edge forward here because it’ll be important when we play this through.
The key to a 3-3-1 like this is an active primary handler, good inter-pod width between the 15m lines, multi-faceted midfielders (or a good blend of handler/hitter role types) and looping back three players as you progress across the field.
You can see how it should work here, at least in part.
When we start to see how the system should work, we can see what doesn’t work within that system. The biggest killer is speed or, specifically, the lack of it in key positions. Munster want to play fast this upcoming season – note Mike Prendergast talking about the speed of their training during last week’s presser – so that will be a crucial factor in judging system suitability.
High speed + elite accuracy = devastation in this system but good speed + decent accuracy = pretty good attacking windows that you can execute against most opponents.
Patterson’s pass quality is pretty inconsistent, even in the above video clips, but his speed of service (arrival to the ruck) and his speed of delivery (the speed he gets the ball from the ground to the air) combined with his own breaking threat around the ruck made him look like a game-changer, frankly, off the bench in both preseason friendlies. Does he have Casey’s or Murray’s pass quality? No. But the speed of delivery makes up for that.
With pace, the right structure and a breaking threat at #10 the system creates space that just wasn’t there last season.
When you don’t have that pace at #9 – in any of the facets we’ve discussed – or the active breaking threat at #10, the system can break down. The opposition can begin to blitz both the arrowhead pod and the flat “shield” pod without an active threat to hold the inside defence as it drifts between the ruck and the target pod.
This isn’t just about being able to carry – a kicking game with variety could do it too, as could a very active Inside Winger like Shane Daly seems to be building towards.
If you don’t have those threats, a 3-3-1 gives up a lot of intercepts or wider players being run into defensive mismatches where, if they lose a collision they’ll usually give up a breakdown turnover.
It’s a complex system that, if it settles in, has the ability to revolutionise Munster’s attack from what has gone before.
