Munster’s attacking work has come in for a lot of praise over the last few weeks – and it’s long overdue – but for me, their defensive work has been just as impressive.
The impact of JP Ferreira’s defensive system over the last few months shouldn’t be underestimated, especially in European competition. The 65 points that Munster have conceded in the five rounds of European rugby to date is second only to Saracens. The 8 tries conceded is second only to Leinster and Saracens (who’ve conceded 7). So from a raw numbers perspective, Munster’s defensive work stacks up with the best in Europe.
Let’s have a look at the theory behind how it got to that level, with a particular focus on last week’s game against Gloucester. The first thing we need to look at is Munster’s defensive structure as it pertains to centre-field position and openside position.
Centre-field defensive position is, as we’ve discussed on here before, the trickiest position to defend from because you have two potential avenues of attack to worry about and, because of the position itself, it’s hard to blitz into the opposition’s attacking structure which means you often end up taking contact on the opposition’s terms rather than dictating contact and position to them.
Here’s a good example of Munster’s centre-field defensive alignment.
Munster stay compact around the ruck point and leave a bit of separation between the edge of the defence and the advancing edge defender. Haley keeps a rough line on the opposition first receiver in the backfield with wiggle room to swing to the other side if Gloucester pull a reverse move.
Farrell’s role here is to step up into the line and set a line for the defenders inside him to scramble to. The space between Scannell and Farrell gives Munster a defensive “rallying point” that covers both possible options for Gloucester.
If Gloucester carry the ball tight, Munster’s compacted ruck point defence should repel them. If Gloucester go wide, Munster have Farrell and Earls on the edge with Scannell using the time it takes Gloucester to physically move the ball to the wing to make up ground on the space between Farrell and himself when the ball leaves the ruck.
Under Nienaber, Farrell might well have blitzed hard onto Twelvetrees in this position but instead, he sets a defensive platform. Scannell and Earls compress around Farrell and guide the ball. Earls pace on the edge gives him an angle on Sharples should Twelvetrees pass the ball out. Haley covers everything from the backfield with his approximate position on the ball carrier.
Let’s see how it plays out.
Gloucester never get an outside angle and are forced to crab back inside where Scannell and Kleyn can mop up and give Munster a chance to reset. Munster’s narrow set on centre-field ruck position makes the defensive decision making quite easy when it comes to tracking play. Push up and then out. You can see the shape here.
The inside defenders push up and out, while the outside defenders hold position and track.
That brings us to Munster’s general openside defensive layout. First, we’ll focus on the backfield defence.
Haley is tracking the path of the ball from ruck to screen with Conway sitting behind the wide defensive line to cover kick throughs or crossfield kick passes. Haley’s positioning and tracking in the backfield are quite important to this defensive scheme because he covers any breaks up the middle of the field because of a missed tackle, a tip on or kick through the line. Munster are using a 13-Up defensive system this season with both wings stepping up or sitting back depending on the attack’s positioning at the time.
In this shot against Exeter, you can see the backfield positioning as it relates to defending in the opposition half. Haley is deep in the backfield for kick returns with Conway recessed on the far wing.
13 men in the front defensive line with Haley in the backfield and Conway recessed.This gives Munster great solidity up the middle of the field – in a similar way that Ireland like to defend under Andy Farrell – and it uses the lateral pace of our wingers to scramble and hold any position in the wide areas if the opposition string two or three passes together in sequence.
You can see Munster moving from the openside defence to the centre-field defence in this sequence.
Breakdown Threat
Munster’s centre-field defence is most visible on these big openside defensive sets, with the most prominent feature being the use of jackals all across the defensive line.
Munster have viable breakdown threats in the middle and edge of this defensive alignment. Gloucester can’t be too relaxed when they carry this ball up the middle because of the threat of Beirne in the middle of the field. Neither can they spread the ball wide too quickly because of the threat Peter O’Mahony poses in the wide channels to any ruck that is resourced by an outside back.
You can see how the threat affects Gloucester’s structures. Everything takes place inside Munster’s jackaling range.
Even if the pass went to hand, look at where Gloucester were building numbers.
All of their structure was away from the jackal range of O’Mahony and Beirne, making it easier for Munster to defend in a compact shape as long as they win collisions.
Munster’s effectiveness on defensive breakdowns is helped by our tackling technique, which trys to give our jackals as much of a look at the ball as possible by blocking the clean out route of the opposition with our initial tackle shape. Watch Stephen Archer on this tackle.
He tackles low and from the side with a good long sweep of legs in the clean out lane. To the referee, he’s just completing a legal tackle but that sweep of his legs forces the Gloucester ruck support to change their running line and give Scannell a shot at a turnover. He doesn’t get the steal here but he forces Gloucester to commit three men to the breakdown and slows their possession.
Kilcoyne’s sweep beyond the tackle here gives Beirne and Stander the space they need to attack Hohneck.
Look at the subtle delay that Kilcoyne’s work after the tackle does to Grobler’s clean out route.
That’s all the space that a guy like Beirne needs. The swipe beyond the tackle doesn’t always lead to a breakdown turnover but it does usually force the opposition into committing resources to every ruck and generally slows up their recycle before anyone even gets over the ball.
