The most dangerous weapon the opposition can have is the one that you give them.
I read that great wisdom on the inside of a fortune cookie that I had after a particularly impressive General Tso’s chicken in Cinncinati, Ohio a few years back. I didn’t realise it then, but that fortune cookie was actually predicting the slight obsession I’d have with kick transition a few years later.
I’m not being fully serious, of course (the General Tso’s wasn’t that good) but the kick transition obsession is completely serious. In the age of highly structured defensive systems, attacking off kick transition is the premium turnover ball to strike from, something Joe Schmidt could tell you all about after these last two weeks.
The TV3 coverage asked post-game if Ireland have a systemic defensive issue, given that we’ve conceded four tries in two games, with three of those coming against the weakest side in the competition. I don’t think we do. I think we have a slight issue with the quality of our exits in certain scenarios but nothing that can’t be fixed.
On Saturday afternoon, Ireland conceded three tries. Two were directly from kick transition events. I mentioned them in the Wally Ratings but I had 10 or so messages asking for a little more detail on them. We can all understand the try Ireland conceded against France because the attack came directly after the kick occurred. Italy’s first try didn’t follow that pattern, but it was a kick transition event nonetheless.
Let’s go back to the 52nd minute of Saturday’s game.
Exposed
Ireland had just rolled the scoreboard over to 42-0 when they lined up to receive the Italian restart. We were about as comfortable as you can be in a test match and didn’t look like conceding anything to an Italian side that couldn’t get their hands on the ball for any sustained amount of time, let alone make any ground in the collisions.
We took the ball cleanly through CJ Stander and began running some wide patterns in the ruck directly following the restart.
I’ve included some of the patterns we ran here (link – 28mb) if you’re interested in seeing them. Why didn’t we exit of any one of those rucks? We were 42-0 up. If there was ever a time to try out some of your wide patterns with a new combination at 9/10, then 42-0 at home against Italy is it.
It was off one of these wider plays that the situation that led to the first Italian try occurred.
This is a typical Irish attacking structure off the ruck.
Marmion feeds the ball to O’Mahony on the edge of a two-man screen and he pops the ball back for Carbery, with Leavy (remember his position here) “pinching” the C defender with an angled decoy line. We’re setting Italy up for wide attack featuring Earls, Kearney and Stockdale in the wide channels.
So far, so good.
But then…
This moment was the key passage of this sequence from an attacking point of view. People think that Ireland play low-risk rugby but that’s certainly not true here. The minute this ball goes to Carbery, Ireland have two likely outcomes – an Irish try or very iffy defensive moment.
If Carbery’s pass beats Castello to Earls, then Ireland would have – almost certainly – scored a try down that far side. I know it’s harsh, but Carbery’s pass doesn’t have the pace or accuracy it needs to pry open this key moment (in the context of this attacking sequence) for Ireland. Earls, Kearney and Stockdale are where they need to be, but the pass is just slightly off. That aside, it’d take a very mature young flyhalf to decide against the pass and take this into contact. We can say in hindsight that it might have been the better option, but if his pass execution is slightly better here we’re talking about how good he was in this sequence.
Castello’s all or nothing defensive action takes Earls and the ball back into the 22, which limits Ireland’s exit options from there on out;
Kearney’s kick up the middle of the pitch is a poor one. He’s kicking out of a spin with two Italian’s crowding his kicking angle and, as he can’t kick directly to touch, he gets the ball away in whatever way he can.
Should he have taken contact? Or shipped the ball onto Stockdale?
Keep an eye on green #7, Dan LeavyAt the moment of decision, Kearney doesn’t have any ruck support within easy reach of him and he has three Italians in his immediate eye line so that probably rules out taking contact.
He could have slung this wide to Stockdale but, again, he’s coming out of a spin so in that half second, he probably thought that making this Stockdale’s problem is a worse option. In theory, Stockdale could have beaten his man and surged up the pitch but the prospect of him being crowded by four Italians and getting bundled into touch is equally likely. That leaves one option.
Set The Numbers
Once Italy received the kick down the middle of the field, one would imagine that the smart counter-attacking move would be to head back towards Kearney like Thomas did in Paris.
In this instance, that would have killed the counter-attack.
Let’s look at what Italy did;
They attacked the opposite side of the pitch, where Ireland had loads of numbers. Why?
To set the transition alignment.
Remember, on kick transition the attacking alignment becomes the defensive alignment. If Italy had ran this back at Kearney, the time it would have taken them to get from the halfway to the point of contact would have given us all the time we could have wanted to get the bulk of our defenders to the right-hand side of the pitch.
By attacking Ireland on the left of the pitch, they kept our bad defensive alignment in a place where we could be hurt – on the outside edge.
Ireland have 12 players on the left-hand side of the pitch because that’s where they were aligned on the previous attacking phases.
The key men here are Toner, Marmion and Leavy defending the edge of the line. Marmion and Leavy are remnants of the attacking phase before this and Toner aligned there after the kick. If Italy get the ball back from this ruck, they’ll know that they have a massive shot at a linebreak if they can target Leavy on his outside shoulder. That’s because, with Marmion on his inside shoulder, Leavy will have to float in the space, lest Marmiom get run over up the middle of the pitch with only Toner, Best and O’Mahony as line cover.
From Italy’s perspective, they want to pin the Irish numbers on the left side of the pitch by targeting Best on the next phase.
If they get the ball back on this phase, they’ll have overlap options and alignments to attack on the next phase. Let’s roll it on;
Should O’Mahony have left this ruck and folded around the corner? Maybe. It’s easy to say that now but it’s a different story if he survives the cleanout and gets a penalty here.
This Italian ruck allowed them to pin the bulk of our numbers away from the target and we haven’t improved our alignment – the outside edge is still Toner, Marmion and Leavy. You can see Marmion screaming for numbers, as he sees the problem fairly starkly.
It’s an excellent finish from Allan but it’s Castello’s work to beat Leavy (Castello’s second big play in this sequence) that made the break.
Leavy was trapped in the part of the field where he’s probably weakest – defending a wide seam at pace – and he got scorched.
Stockdale and Kearney are watching the outside numbers. Stockdale has to angle out to cover that option and that separates him enough from Leavy to make that seam for Castello to attack. Leavy gave himself a lot of work to do by stepping out – it means he had to run further to get to the carrier – and he got beaten for pace.
It might not have looked like a transition attack, but it was exactly that.
The second try was similar and more straightforward, even though it actually came straight from good Irish defensive work. Bundee Aki turned over the ball in the wide channels and that gave Ireland a chance to exit.
This is a little more unfortunate.
Carbery was looking to make a big exit down the field but left himself way too much to do. When he didn’t get the bounce, this was a classic kick transition event.
When Carbery kicked at this angle, he did so with 13 Irish players on his inside shoulder, making this a massive risk for the young 10 to make. Remember, he couldn’t kick this straight out because the ball was taken back into the 22, so he was in a position where he had to make a high percentage play.
Leavy isn’t a live pass option, so Carbery has two options – truck it up or kick. He backs his kick but doesn’t make touch.
The big issue here is communication. Did Carbery call for the ball off Kearney? Because if he did, it’s a poor decision from the youngster. The obvious play off this turnover is a platform carry;
Ireland had a good carrying alignment up the middle of the pitch to work some position for an exit or a counter-attack of our own but when it goes back for a kick that’s off the table. It’s a poor kick from Carbery but, in fairness, he had limited options here. We can talk about what he could have done – carry the ball back towards the forwards, angle a run out to bring Leavy into play – but it’s easy to say that after the fact. These little moments will be hugely instructive for him.
A big talking point was Jordan Larmour getting beaten on the run back here but he was under a lot of pressure in context;
He was defending a 10-metre short side with no idea who had chased across to back his inside shoulder. The Italian winger sat Larmour down with a feint inside and then a power step to his outside shoulder – it happens.
When the ball moved beyond that point, it would take a massive error or defensive play to stop a try being scored.
