[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]E[/su_dropcap]verything is easier with momentum but momentum isn’t worth anything unless you capitalise on it. Munster have a lot of momentum right now. Two last gasp wins over what you’d have said was our chief conference rivals this season plus a big (if imperfect) win over the side who topped the conference ahead of the last round should have everyone buzzing. Munster had the second most difficult relative opening schedule in the league in my opinion – I’d rank Benetton’s opening three games against Ulster, Leinster and Scarlets as the most difficult – so to come out with three wins should be enough to propel us to the kind of test window that puts you in contention to top your conference come season’s end.
The test window is an undervalued part of the season. Manage a strong test window performance and a passable InterPro season and you’ll be very close to topping the pool. You don’t have to run through a season undefeated – Leinster lost five in 2018/19 and still topped their conference by 13 points – but a strong test window stretch in the Autumn and Spring will put you in position to get Last year was a bit of an aberration as it was post World Cup but even then, it was a bad squad rotation matchup against Edinburgh that cost us a home semi-final. The previous two years in Conference A were won by a Glasgow Warriors side that started incredibly strongly and racked up crucial bonus points in the early, non-international going of the season. Their 2017/18 start was particularly impressive.
They won 10 games in a row from the start of the season and the buffer they gained in that time gave them enough “fat” at the top of the table to survive four losses in their last five games and still finish seven points clear of Munster at the end of the season.
So the relative importance of this game against the Dragons is a little more than it might appear on the face of it. This kind of test window game is the definition of non-descript when you compare it to the glitz of Six Nations Super Saturday but the 80 minutes in Newport on Sunday afternoon could have a big echo come the end of the season for Munster. Another four or five points while Scarlets and Edinburgh take points off each other in Murrayfield and Cardiff host Ulster? There’s an opportunity here. Wins for Edinburgh and Ulster coupled with a Munster bonus-point win could grow our lead at the top of the conference to nine points with a host of winnable games on the horizon.
Munster won’t be looking beyond the Dragons this weekend but a strong performance against a side that will be without much of their senior management team due to a positive COVID test and some self isolations is the kind of thing that momentum must power you through.
Let’s have a look at the teams.
Dragons: 15. Josh Lewis, 14. Owen Jenkins, 13. Adam Warren, 12. Jamie Roberts, 11. Ashton Hewitt, 10. Sam Davies, 9. Rhodri Williams (c); 1. Brok Harris, 2. Richard Hibbard, 3. Lloyd Fairbrother, 4. Joe Davies, 5. Matthew Screech, 6. Ben Fry, 7. Harrison Keddie, 8. Ollie Griffiths
Replacements: 16. Ellis Shipp, 17. Conor Maguire, 18. Aaron Jarvis, 19. Ben Carter, 20. Taine Basham, 21. Tavis Knoyle, 22. Jack Dixon, 23. Dafydd Howells
Every player has a defensive radius.
That defensive radius depends on their physical stature and their position on the defensive line in the context of where the ball is and where the previous ruck was.
A good trio of midfielders and a winger, for example, have a wide defensive radius when a ball comes at them in an edge space.
Essentially, their radius is the space they can cover effectively. Now, if we put a pair of front row forwards in that same position, how does their defensive radius look?
There are more attackable lanes because the players defending the space have a smaller defensive radius. If you run right at the props, they’ll smash you, but they aren’t able to cover the same lateral and horizontal space. At the same time, if you put a winger with his wide edge defensive radius right next to a ruck defending against front five forwards from 5m out, he’ll be really up against it.
The very best forwards have a good defensive radius wherever they are on the field. Billy Vunipola, for example, is comfortable defending off #9 and has the athleticism to be able to cover the wider spaces when he finds himself there. I’d class guys like CJ Stander, Charles Ollivon, Tom Curry, Sam Underhill and others as guys with the same kind of defensive versatility.
My point is this – when we’re examining markers of quality between two different sides there are many different factors to consider and one of the ones I look at is the defensive radius of the opposition’s front five forwards. Most teams stack their heaviest defenders – we’ll refer to them as the “tight five” as a shorthand – in contextually suitable positions for their size so they are normally seen in the middle of the field, between the 15m lines and tracking across following tight rucks.
A big marker of quality is how the tight five forwards follow the play and fill space across the field. The very best tight five athletes can cover the space really well and it’s one of many key metrics on which they’re measured. I think this is an area that Munster can attack the Dragons in this game.
Have a look at some of the “progressions” – how the Dragons tight five fill space across – and their lock Joe Davies and their hooker Richard Hibbard in particular.
How do Munster attack this? Well, the width and variety we saw off #9 against Cardiff will be a valuable tool in fixing the Dragons front five in positions where we can attack their lack of pace, especially during a game where we’re expecting a lot of rain and heavy underfoot conditions. Essentially, we want to fix players like Joe Davies, Richard Hibbard, Brok Harris (in particular) and Lloyd Fairbrother in space so that we can attack their progress across the field, force their back-row to stick closer to their front five and then use the likes of De Allende, Nash, Sweetnam and Gallagher to attack that spacing.
Keep an eye on the two tight five forwards here and how the space around them is preserved after they interact with the ball.
That’s a lot of offensive space for Ulster to work with.
The onus will be on Munster to produce the kind of width off #9 that drags guys like Harris, Hibbard and Davies into central positions where they can be isolated. Casey will need to interest the first two defenders off the ruck by establishing a break relatively early but the biggest factor will be getting momentum on our three pod off #9 – targeting Griffiths to keep him out of the wider play – and then swinging wide behind our midfield two pod using #4 Davies and #3 Fairbrother in central positions as a reference point. This would tie in any wide flankers, overload their midfield with the threat of De Allende and then look to pop their edge defence completely.
The principle attacks the slow lateral pace of these four players – blue box – to compress the Dragons primary line around them so that De Allende can surge at Roberts and Warren with strong hitters like Gallagher in support.
It’s not just about attacking the tight five, it’s attacking the players that Dragons will stack around them in support.
