What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their coaches.
During the postgame press run, Matt O’Connor complained about Andrew Conway knocking himself out, Jerome Garces, the temperature of his tea (probably) and, of course, Munster’s “cynicism” at the breakdown.
We’ve all heard this song before – the lyrics of failure are instantly recognisable. We’ve all been there. “The ref robbed us. They cheated all day. Will we get the same soft reffing as they did next week? We wuz robbed!”.
Now, admittedly, you don’t hear the measured equivalent of that fizzing from the opposition head coach but, hey, it’s 2017 – just roll with it.
Munster’s dominant 33-10 win over the Leicester Tigers was founded on a dominant breakdown display (on both sides of the ball) and some fairly impressive centre field defence.
I wrote on Friday that Munster’s centre field defence is the core of their entire defensive system. In a way, that’s a tautology, as most teams will protect their middle line but in Munster’s case, the system is massively dependent on preventing any kind of momentum in this area;
The area inside the 15m trams is the scramble zone, everything between the 15m lines in the middle of the pitch is the Kill Zone.
There was a real example of this mixture between Kill Zone and Scramble Zone in the early exchanges of the game.
As ever, attacking lineouts around the middle of the field are a dangerous proposition to Munster’s defence and the 10 channel, in particular, is a great place for a side like Tigers to target.
Keatley and Scannell make the hit, don’t bite in on Ford’s stretch line and, with Cloete, hovering, can stuff the carry and prevent Tigers from getting quick ball. Look at Scannell hanging on as long as he can on the wrong side to slow the transfer back and guide the ball back inside – those little details slow down the Tigers enough for Munster to get Archer, Marshall, Cloete and Stander onto the openside of the ruck.
When the Tigers get the ball back, it looks like they have an overlap but, in reality, this is a gamble that Munster are willing to risk for line speed integrity.
Look at the very next phase;
Leicester get the ball wide from a slow ruck and we scramble well to snuff out the danger on that phase. If I had nitpicks, I’d look at Wootton slipping slightly and Arnold not wiping his man into touch but these are small things
Initially, this looks like we’re giving up an overlap on the outside but – are we?
Zebo’s covering in the backfield and, because we got our forwards around the corner on the previous phase, all of them can “close the door” on the outside break given his depth.
That’s exactly what happens, and Cloete gets the rip for the turnover.
I’ll come back to that one in the Attacking Ruck article coming after this one.
Kill Zone
That time, space and depth came from Munster’s work to slow down the ball in the tackle and prevent the Tigers from getting a flow ruck to ruck.
Have a look at these two phases – both nearly identical in position – for an idea on how Munster approach this critical area of the pitch.
Tigers are launching an attack on the middle of the field and, forward to forward, Munster have to deny them gain line AND quick ball.
Kitchener feints a pop pass but that doesn’t put off Stander and Kilcoyne, who nail him behind the gainline and, crucially, slow up that ball transfer. Kilcoyne makes sure that he’s in a position to be cleaned out and Stander keeps his feet and spoils for as long as possible. Leicester are forced to kick away. A little victory for Munster’s defence and double that for Youngs follow up poor kick.
Look at this next example in the same area of the pitch;
This time it’s Kilcoyne and Holland (assisted ably by Scannell) who are making the stop on Coles behind the gainline. Look at Scannell’s body position – clean me out! – and then Archer’s jackal for the ball. Leicester have to commit six forwards to the ruck and are forced to kick away.
Did they expect Munster to stand off the ruck here?
As I wrote on Friday;
If we can funnel the Tigers into narrow carrying patterns, stuff this three pod tip-on gimmick, attack the breakdown relentlessly and force them to kick through Ford or rely on Youngs breaks, we’ll be most of the way there.
Attacking breakdown’s isn’t always about stealing the ball, it’s about creating time.
Time is the biggest x-factor in the game of rugby union if you want to see the game in 3D. The slower you can make the opposition ruck and the deeper you can force them in the attacking line, the easier it is to defend space on the tramlines, even when you’re numbers down.
Ask yourself the question here – is this an overlap?
It’s an overlap in name only. This is not an overly dangerous defensive scenario when you have good line speed. Why?
Because the ball can only move so fast if passed through the hands and all the time the ball is moving, so are we.
It still looks like an overlap, but our line speed to the opposition #13 is the key thing here because the #10 or #6 can’t pass the ball to the overlapped player quicker than we can run to intercept, and he certainly can’t take that ball at pace either.
So we know that the ball has to go to the edge handler – if we get to #13 with speed, there is no overlap;
With the space pressure, the opposition #13 must throw the ball with added height and without forward movement of his own – this allows us to surge into #14’s space, crowd his lane and make hits.
Here’s an example of that application of time, depth and space.
Munster lose the collision but Cloete’s four second slow down of the ruck gives Munster a chance to set the line speed and stifle the wide man overlap.
This is a situation that looks dangerous but isn’t, barring a catastrophic error like a slip or a bad missed tackle.
Munster mop this up fairly easily with Zebo covering the angles well at fullback.
In this example, we lose the gain line again but Cloete (there he is again) steps on the Tigers’ ruck timing and rides the line between legality and penalty.
He traps the ball in there for four seconds and on phase play against Munster’s defence, that’s an eternity.
Time Travellers
It was Munster’s use of time as a weapon that really causes the Tigers the most amount of trouble here. We forced ourselves to be cleaned out, and that alone takes one or two men out of the next phase and, as I’ve shown, burns time.
Look at this wide example from Alex Wootton;
Again – look at Munster closing the door on something that looks like an overlap. Space, time and depth, remember that.
Focusing on Wootton specifically, look at how he grabs into the carriers shirt as a brace. With a long brace – as opposed to a wide brace – he’s extremely difficult to clean out front on and his slowing of the ruck draws three Tigers out of the next phase. Look at Keats subtle stall on Youngs passing lane, too.
All this adds up to the kind of slow ball Munster’s defence love.
The next phase is an important one because it’s going to be a centre field ruck. We have to win the collision;
We didn’t win the first one, and unfortunate body angles meant we gave up quick ball too but two massive plays by Murray and Holland saved the day. If Coles gets through clean here, a try wouldn’t be far behind but Murray, and then Holland, pile him backwards. Murray interrupts the clean out angle with his body position and Holland’s under-thigh grip give him a powerful tackle position to land Coles on his back.
From there, O’Mahony can attack the ruck as the first man, clamp over the ball, force the rip and then lose his feet for the turnover. Some referees would have blown this up but O’Mahony did what all good flankers do – danced on the line that the referee gives them.
Screw the “laws”, it’s not a penalty until the referee blows his whistle.
This slowing of Leicester’s ruck and the men we forced out of phase to clean us out was a key part of killing Leicester’s attacking momentum.
Just look at the stats, Leicester carried the ball 108 times and out of their 91 rucks, they won only 85 (a 93% return rate). That shows serious disruption to their attacking flow. Munster, as a contrast, won 95 of their 96 rucks.
