[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]he buildup to this game has been dominated by the shock retirement announcement of CJ Stander. That is unsurprising. A player such as Stander – somehow one of the most controversial guys in the game on this island despite being one of the nicest guys in the business – can’t simply announce his impending retirement and have it be just a “thing”. It’s a big deal.
Some have been focusing on the timing of Stander’s announcement and questioning the motives of Andy Farrell, who has stated that he was aware of CJ’s intent to retire for a number of weeks.
Why, they ask, did CJ play such a massive role for Ireland in this year’s Six Nations if the IRFU knew he was going to retire?
Why did they not prioritise “the future”?
I think it’s a fair question, actually. I will hazard a guess that Andy Farrell’s priorities ahead of this Six Nations were “we need to win games” and the best way to do that was with CJ Stander playing a pivotal role. Farrell’s promotion of Doris and Connors (along with Keenan, Baird and Kelleher) to regular international honours wasn’t enough to prevent a steadily increasing pressure on his performance last season so I doubt parting with his most reliable impact ball carrier ahead of a pivotal Six Nations in favour of a younger model would have done him any favours, even if results to date were identical and they may not have been.
That’s a problem for Future Andy Farrell, which has been a common trend over the last year. For Now Andy Farrell, Ireland’s issues in attack would not be helped by rotating out the one player who has shown himself capable of being a consistent gain line winner week after week after week after season after season. Even against Italy, Farrell would have been loath to rotate out his key gain line winner because, in context, he needed to win that game.
I mean, I know I’m guilty of sentimentality more than most on these pages, but even I would accept that if Ireland had a guy who could fill Stander’s role to even half the level that he has done it, the sensible thing to do would be to scale Stander down the depth chart and use those minutes for the other guy. The only problem is I don’t think there’s a guy in the test bubble right now who can fill that spot. Rhys Ruddock has been touted for years but I’m not convinced he has that type of roleset in him at test level. Jack Conan is the next guy up – and he’ll get an examination in this game – but the next guys after Conan were and are probably better off playing provincial rugby for the last few weeks. Guys like Coombes is a year out from regular test contention, in my opinion, and the other players who fit Stander’s role set aren’t in the back row – they are players like Kelleher, Kilcoyne, Furlong and perhaps someone like James Ryan, Iain Henderson or even a Ryan Baird with tweaked roles.
How do you replace a guy who regularly carries all over the field – pick and go, off #9, off #10 and in the wide channels – fifteen plus times per game into heavy traffic for a gainline percentage win? I don’t think one player alone can do that and it’s remarkable that CJ has been doing that for the last five years at the very highest level, to be honest.
Stander’s impending retirement brings into sharp focus what has been an undercurrent in Ireland’s game for three years now – how do we maximise our ball carrying rotation against the very best sides and maximise our overall attacking output?
This is the first game before the Post-Stander era of Irish Rugby so let’s have a look at the teams.
England: 15. Max Malins, 14. Anthony Watson, 13. Elliot Daly, 12. Owen Farrell (c), 11. Jonny May; 10. George Ford, 9. Ben Youngs; 1. Mako Vunipola, 2. Luke Cowan-Dickie, 3. Kyle Sinckler, 4. Maro Itoje, 5. Charlie Ewels, 6. Mark Wilson, 7. Tom Curry,
8. Billy Vunipola
Replacements: 16. Jamie George, 17. Ellis Genge, 18. Will Stuart, 19. Jonny Hill, 20. Ben Earl, 21. Dan Robson, 22. Ollie Lawrence, 23. Joe Marchant
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Stander’s announcement this week brought into focus what he actually does for Ireland’s attacking game and raised a few discussions about its inherent value in a wider context.
When you make 15+ carries a game for five years, it can become background noise to a lot of people. Instead of focusing on the value of that contribution, it instead begs the question “why aren’t you passing five of those carries?” In an environment when Ireland’s attack has rarely been free-flowing, a guy who gets over the gain-line can fall out of fashion in favour of something that is the opposite of what you have. So where Stander is robust defensively, powerful in the breakdown and consistent in his ball-carrying people want a player who is a component of a different attacking system – they want offloads, they want raking passes, a ball-playing #8.
This would be accurate if it was possible to transplant players from one system directly into another with no lag. I think something that is closer to the truth is that CJ Stander is the player he is today because it is what Ireland have needed him to be.
Look at this sequence early in the game against Scotland; look at how the Scottish defensive line – and Cummings in particular – reacts to this gain line win.
They move backwards and reset. This small act of getting over the gain line against a strong defender in Johnny Gray has created an extra few seconds of space-time for Johnny Sexton to execute his play without having to readjust his depth. If Stander does not get over the gain line here – if he loses the momentum battle with Gray and gets driven back on his arse, for example – Scotland’s defence is instead moving forward by a few steps into our attacking space instead of retreating backwards by a few steps.
In the very same sequence, we see another illustration of Stander’s value and his attacking instincts. Off a slow ball recycle, Gibson-Park finds Ringrose who IDs Stander as an ideal target on the short side. Ringrose’s pass isn’t exactly what it needed to be to unlock the best opportunity here but it gets there eventually. When Stander takes possession, the situation in front of him has changed. Now he could pass the ball here but look at Maitland’s position – that’s an aggressive, pass-blocking defensive line – so instead of making the ball someone else’s problem, essentially shipping on rubbish ball to Beirne closer to the touchline, he takes it on himself.
We end up scoring on the very next phase – with a bit of good fortune, it has to be said – but Stander’s two involvements that earned two metres of gainline at the most were important pieces of the puzzle.
In the broader scheme of Ireland’s attack, we need that narrow platform to set up what should be a strength of ours – our 10/12/13 combination.
We have rarely seen that, however. Even here in this setup, we use the narrow collision to open up space for Henshaw and Ringrose to run a little scheme in the wider channels.
Why is the narrow collision important? Because it binds defenders to the floor while the other defenders slide across the space. That removal of defenders in the narrow space creates a gap that the inside defenders have to traverse. This is the principle that underpins the strength of having a collision game off #9 that wins the gainline because of this simple principle.
CJ is in a screen here and he runs a hook route after the ball bypasses him as a support runner/offload target for Ringrose if he can successfully cut against the grain and get over the gain line.
Ringrose spills the ball – uncharacteristically I would add – but if you are wondering why that kind of gain line collision is important it’s because of the way a dominant collision forces the inside defenders to become the outside defenders at pace while trying to stay onside.
When you lose that narrow collision, it stymies the depth and attacking lines of the outside attacking options. This gain line loss combined with a slow reset has an effect further out. Look at the way it staggers Ringrose’s line outside Henshaw.
Ringrose could readjust, sure, but he’s got to reset his depth on the fly as Ireland are looking to progress on this two set of phases. It’s not as easy as it looks. CJ Stander, when in these positions, tends to get the result of either binding defenders to the floor (good), making the gain line (great) and presenting well for the pass away.
Gain line will be hugely important against this England side. Why? They don’t tend to have the ball for very long, they have the most gain line smothering defence in the Six Nations and, against France, they found a balance in their game that wasn’t so reliant on piecing teams up in defence.
Against France, England dominated possession and absolutely powdered France in the collisions. Both Curry and Vunipola had 10+ ball carries and got to the gainline 89% and 77% of the time. England in general got over the gainline 67% of the time against France and, Gregory Aldritt – a primary ball carrier for France in that game – only made the gainline 22% of the time on his 14 carries. That wasn’t all of the reason why England won that game but their relative gain line dominance played a part nonetheless.
England still kick more in their own 22 and from the 22 to the 50 than the tournament average. Traditionally, England have been quite comfortable in kicking possession back to Ireland over our last four meetings because, for the most part, when they have we have failed to impact them physically in any significant way. Will they take the same approach here? I think so. Why? Well, England have the lowest ruck retention rate in the tournament so far and Ireland have consistently shown that they are amongst the best jackaling teams in the tournament.
If I were Eddie Jones, what would I instruct England to do? I would kick to Ireland on most possession in the English half of the field, I would force Ireland to try and create something in our 22-50 – something Ireland have consistently failed to do this season – and then wait for our response. If you want to know why Murray was brought back in for this game, this is it. The key will come down to how Ireland produce possession in the English half on our kick chase. If our scrum and lineout hold up – and I have worries – this will be close. If we consistently fail to impact the gain line when England kick to us and we kick poorly in return, this could get ugly.
It’s going to be a fascinating contest.
