There are three things that scare the brown stuff out of me. Pace, flat angles and width.

I mean, I’m talking about rugby here. If I wasn’t, this would be a GIF Room about killer clowns, heights and pandemics. *Cough*.

However, if we contain the fear of what might happen between the white lines of a rugby pitch, there’s nothing that gets me sweating like the application of pace and width in flat, hard lines. It’s an absolute cheese nightmare to try and defend if you can combine it with quick ruck ball.

So that’s why it was so interesting to get a close look at Munster’s warm up this past Friday against the Dragons. After the general warm up, Felix Jones was taking trios of Munster players into the trams and working hard support patterns between them. It was done at pace, with an emphasis on fixing and popping to the other men in the arrowhead.

Couple that with Jones taking the 9s through a pace/width passing drill with an emphasis on early decision making, a flat passing angle and a wide target and you’ve a good idea of what our attacking emphasis would be in this game.

After 20 minutes, that emphasis paid dividends and would stay paying out like a broken ATM for the remaining 60 minutes.

The Arrow Head Support

This game was probably the most coherent attacking display I’ve seen from Munster this season so far. Yes, it was “only” the Dragons but that dismissive hand wave always winds me up – mainly because it’s a product of hindsight. The Dragons were game on Friday night. They were organised well and they defended much better than the scoreline would suggest, even with their weakened squad from the week before.

Munster’s attack took a while to get going but once it did, the rhythm came incredibly naturally. We ran excellent, wide patterns and looked incredibly dangerous off centre ruck ball. This was the kind of attack that only JJ Hanrahan can direct from 10, in my opinion.

Now I know that JJ Hanrahan is a bit of a divisive figure. If you asked 10 Munster fans about him, you’d have five saying he was overhyped and the other five saying he was the best thing since plugs on a bus. He’s far from the complete 10 at the moment, but the options he gives us in attack when he plays like he did Friday are fascinating – specifically when he takes up the role of wide playmaker at the head of an arrow head support pattern.

Let’s have a look.

The first example I’ll look at here is the build up to the first try. Now, as I only have footage of the tries, there is an element of success bias to this footage but I think it shows the nuance quite well.

The first try actually came from Munster attacking Dragons’ kick transition. Here’s Sweetnam’s action on the return.

In the stadium, I heard a few people grumbling about how Sweetnam didn’t just get this wide when he hit the line due to the overlap that’s in place on the outside. First of all, an overlap isn’t always an overlap. Sure, the numbers might be up but that black and white thinking assumes that numbers can’t transition across and force you into the best defender into the game – the touchline.

Sweetnam runs an excellent fix line, that’ll narrow defenders into the centre of the pitch and ensure that the next phase actually has the numbers you’d think were there on this phase.

Remember, a ruck is a “decision point” for the defence. Without a ruck, the defence can just swarm towards the ball, making any overlap without a ruck or step by step hands a fleeting opportunity. A good ruck – much like a boulder being planted in a small river – stems the flow of the defence.

Once the ball hits the deck after Zebo’s excellent tracking run, we’re ready to go. Remember the warm-up? Hard flat passes from the ruck, support lines of three?

This is just outstanding from Williams and Hanrahan. JJ’s positioning is the exact spot that would cause the most amount of damage.

Look at where he takes the ball.

Look at the white dot supporting options around him. Look at how flat to the advantage line he takes this. This is excellent stuff.

By putting the 10 in this position;

Munster have fixed the outside defenders. With Hanrahan as the point of the arrow head, the defence can’t just swarm on his position, they have to watch the inside ball as well as the outside one. The Dragons defence has had fold around the ruck, their hearts are pounding and this action from Williams has given them a horrible three pronged decision to make. Do I hit Hanrahan? Do I push towards the touchline in case he dumps to Scannell/Farrell? Do I float and watch the inside ball to Sweetnam/Cloete?

Nightmare.

If Hanrahan had taken up a more conventional first receiver position, it wouldn’t have been half as dangerous.

Here, the defence would only have two decisions to make; do they float on Hanrahan or push off towards the touchline? That application of pace, width and a flatter angle makes all the difference.

This wouldn’t be the only time we’d use this kind of pattern off a quick ball centre field ruck in between the 10m lines.

The next one came from Hanrahan again, but set up by an excellent stretch and hit from Farrell.

This was really excellent. Hanrahan draws the defence across (the stretch) and then dumps to Farrell for the big hit up against the grain. Crucially, look at Hanrahan – he’s already floating off for the next phase.

The stretch and hit has ensured that the next phase is a quick ball because Farrell has caught the Dragons defence flat and unprepared for the ruck. When Hart gets the ball away, we’ve already got an arrow head ready to go.

Let’s watch the whole thing with both phases;

Does that look familiar to the first try? It should – the pattern is almost identical.

The set up centre field ruck, the quick wide angle from the 9, Hanrahan in a wide channel with angled support off either shoulder, the break – it’s almost a duplicate.

This time, the ball goes inside after Hanrahan exploits the confusion that his positioning naturally causes. Arnold picks up the score.

That pace, width and flat angle caused the stress that would break the Dragons defence wide open and give a hint to where our attacking game is ultimately heading.