The GIF Room :: Drill Through

I went over Munster’s maul defence against Leicester earlier in the week but, for me, our own lineout and maul were just as impressive.

The Munster maul produced a number of penalties and made good ground on most occasions and all that came from our excellent setups, lineout feints, throwing and maul construction. If your judge of a good maul is how many times you run the opposition over their own line, you lose a lot of the appreciation for this technical side of the maul game.

It’s the subtlety, the subterfuge, the feinting that interests me and this game had an awful lot to look at.

So much of mauling is based on misdirection and drawing numbers away from the point where the maul will form. Against Leicester, Munster used these principles to attack Leicester’s lack of pace in the lineout.

What does pace have to with mauling?

As I’ve said before;

It takes less energy to successfully defend a maul than it does to attack with it if the defence can read the point of landing.

If you can construct your maul before the opposition can set their defence of it, you’re already winning. You do that by pulling them out of position on the ground, getting some quick ball in the air and then exploiting their pack’s pace (or lack thereof) to surge into strong maul positions before they can set their defence.

Let’s have a look at how this works in practice.

First, we should have a look at Leicester’s starting back row and some of their vital statistics as provided by Wikipedia. Let’s assume that there’s a bit of wiggle room in these measurements.

#6: Valentino Mapapalangi – 6’4″ and 17.5 stone
#7: Mike Williams – 6’5″ and 18.8 stone
#8: Sione Kalamafoni – 6’5″ and 19.1 stone

That’s an extraordinarily big Leicester back row. Throw in Fitzgerald (6’5″/18 stone) and Kitchener (6’6″/19 stone) and you have a very big – but very immobile – Leicester back. This was the biggest video takeaway I found from the Thomond Park game.

You can really see this lack of speed on their own throw and that played a crucial role for Munster.

Have a look at these examples from the Thomond Park game – 1, 2, 3. They’re all slowed down quite a bit so you can see how close Munster get to their timing. The key part is this GIF here;

That’s Kitchener raising his arm to set Youngs’ throw timer. You can see it in a lot of Leicester’s calls. Kitchener walks into the line and raises his hand for Youngs to see – this sets Youngs throwing motion in place. All week I was wondering if that could tell us where the throw would go but in reality – it didn’t matter where it went. Once you have a rough idea when the ball is coming in, you don’t need to know where it’s going if you have a front jumper like O’Mahony.

When Kitchener put his arm up to set Youngs throw timer, all Munster would have to do is challenge at the front to middle and they’d get the reward.

So it went.

Look at the arm raise and, crucially, Kilcoyne spotting it;

Once Mapapalangi feints out of the line, O’Mahony is free to attack the throw and picks it off clean.

The one constant in all of that action is Leicester’s relatively low speed in the air and over the ground meant that a slight tweak to Munster’s attacking schemes could pay real dividends.

Deception

A lot of lineout action is based around making the opposition think you’re jumping somewhere and then jumping elsewhere. You can do this in a few different ways – by alignment, feinting or cycling players through the line.

Here’s an example of how an alignment can deceive the opposition;

Putting Cloete at the front of the lineout puts real doubt in Mapapalangi’s mind.

“Are they going to lift Cloete? He’s light – so that means he’ll be quick but he’s short so will it be a quick throw?”

Stander just smooth steps back, Cloete stays alive like he’s a pass option, and that’s enough to give Munster clean ball at 3. Mapapalangi was prevented from challenging in the air at the front and Fitzgerald’s poor jump gives Munster a valuable pocket of disruption to build a maul into.

All from a static alignment.

Creating that pocket of disruption is hugely valuable to any mauling team. The last thing you want is to try to hammer through a set defensive counter maul – that’s a good way to burn your own energy and hand mental momentum to the opposition.

What you want to do is get their line moving to where you aren’t, so you can then maul through them while they’re disrupted.

Our feinting in this regard was really very good. This was my favourite example;

Billy Holland’s feint takes out an entire defensive lifting pod and gives O’Mahony, Kleyn and Stander a massive pocket to maul into in they so wish. The minute a Tiger approaches this maul, they could motor in a straight line with a powerful drive unit in place behind O’Mahony with Archer and Cloete ready to join.

The pocket of disruption was made through one man feinting to the front and by the time Tigers’ realise, they don’t have the pace to react.

Cycling Runners

Munster were incredibly effective at creating pockets of disruption by cycling Jean Kleyn through the line.

Kleyn runs to the front of the lineout, which drags Mapapalangi and Traynor out of position. Holland takes the ball at 3, while Kleyn cycles back around to become part of the maul drive on landing. Let’s look at what happened next;

Kleyn would join the maul as Holland landed, push into Mapapalangi and create a lane for Cloete, Stander and O’Byrne to attack.

Cole’s push on O’Mahony blocks Archer’s support line and that takes a bit of heft out of Munster’s “around the corner” move here. Leicester ended up defending this well enough but Munster were just a few movements away from getting a dynamic 3/4 on 1 maul situation that could well have ended up in a try.

This cycling movement was something Munster would return to again and again. This is a good example of Munster using a “Stretch & Pinch” movement to isolate a single jumping pod.

Kleyn feints to the front and Holland feints to the back before both men cycle back to take up a driving position in the maul behind O’Mahony, who’s lifted by Archer and Kilcoyne.

Slater, Kitchener and Mapapalangi are all disrupted by this, and it shows in the sloppy, jagged maul defence they put in place. Look at how badly timed Mapapalangi is here; Tigers have guessed wrong on the landing and, as a result, are in a dangerous position.

Let’s see how the whole thing runs;

Munster twist through this initial counter maul and shear off down the pitch, forcing Cole to infringe and give away the penalty.

This cycling movement worked over and over again;

Here, Kleyn cycles to the front as well and that action meant that Tigers’ front jumping pod were all over the place body position wise; look at Mulipola and Mapapalangi defend this maul once Fitzgerald loses his footing?

The next part is inevitable;

Munster get a long maul going and use their powerful drive unit to “pivot” the Tigers. In practice, this is when you put pressure on the defensive maul, gauge what the strong side is and then push/pull on the side that’s giving the most resistance.

In this instance, Mulipola and Mapapalangi are going too strong on the touchline side, so Munster can shear them off and attack infield.

Leicester are forced to give away a penalty.

That maul construction is impressive though, isn’t it? Munster are locked in place on landing and their body positions are all about transferring power through the point of the maul. Look at Stander – he’s braced in the middle of Kleyn and Kilcoyne like he’s pushing in a scrum. Little details like that matter.

Our maul setups were fantastic throughout.

Construction

When you’re building a maul, you want to get locked in and pushing before the opposition. Munster have been quite good at this aspect of the game this season but were especially good in this game.

Here’s a good example;

Now, this isn’t perfect – we lose a bit of momentum on landing – but the quality of the setup saves it. Let’s also acknowledge how bad Leicester’s maul defence is. Look at Mapapalangi trying to spike Munster’s flank – he’s nowhere near the ball and working his weight on Holland who can easily shear off the maul.

Kitchener is off balance chasing a lost cause and Fitzgerald’s body positioning is less than useless.

Predictably, Munster splinter the Tigers with relative ease using that pivot I spoke about earlier.

And here it is in motion;

The maul construction means that Munster can use this kind of intuition and manoeuvrability to react to what the maul defence gives them in real time. With good bind comes good collective reactions.

Another important aspect of your setup is getting your power guys in a position to push in straight lines.

For Munster, that’s getting Jean Kleyn into a position where he can transfer his massive power into an area of defensive weakness.

This also shows the benefit of having a jumper like O’Mahony who can give you the speed in the air of a loose forward and the bracing power of a lock on landing. When he can do this, you can bring one or both of your locks in behind him in excellent pushing positions.

Look at this example that, I feel, embodies everything I’ve been talking about here.

An excellent throw and another Stretch & Pinch call with Kleyn and Holland cycling back in behind O’Mahony, Kilcoyne and Archer. Look at how cleanly that lineout sets up around O’Mahony.

From there, we get the power men moving in a straight line.

Look at that power coming up the middle of the maul. That straight line grunt from Kleyn, O’Mahony and Archer just nails Leicester and gives Munster excellent go forward with the powerful 3-2-1 Long Maul setup.

Tigers lack of speed in the pack meant that every feint they bought became more damaging as the move developed. The slower your pack, the harder it is to successfully counter maul.