[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]he year that seemingly never ends has somehow finally turned back around to the Champions Cup. The last time we were speaking about this tournament in earnest, Munster were losing to Racing 92 in La Defense and sticking a big win on the Ospreys in Thomond Park to wrap up a disappointing campaign. Context will tell you that Munster’s 2019/20 European campaign was unbalanced by an incredibly difficult pool featuring, as it did, the reigning European champions and defining side of the era in Peak Saracens along with Racing 92. Munster got close to parity at home (a draw against Racing and a narrow win in a washing machine over a rotated Saracens) but lost fairly decisively away from home against the sides that would go onto contest a semi-final against each other and produce a losing finalist.
So a tough pool, for sure, but Munster expect to qualify for the knockouts and it was the first time since 2015/16 that Munster were kicking their heels in the latter half of the tournament. We expect more. In some ways, it was a highlight package of Munster’s progression over the last few seasons where our European campaigns came to a halt at the hands of both these sides. Saracens and Racing 92 were endpoints for Munster over the previous three years and, ultimately, the same was true last season.
What’s different this year? A fair bit, we hope.
Munster have certainly progressed from a game plan and structure perspective over the seven PRO14 games I’ve seen this season but this game against Harlequins will be a step up in difficulty from what we’ve seen to date. New first string options are creating upward pressure on the depth charts, too. Healy and Casey could easily have started this game and, for the first time in a long time, the established starting half-backs are under genuine selection pressure in this game. It’s not at the Bench Cam levels we saw during Sexton/ROG but it’s not far off. That energy can only be a good thing, as long as it’s balanced correctly.
It’s very much a 23 man game these days in that you must have a palpable impact off the bench to manage the mid-game to end-game transition against tough opponents
From first European caps at the end of last season to being a hair away from starting the first Champions Cup game of the following season? That’s a progression in itself but ask both guys if they’re happy to be coming off the bench here and I would say the answer is “no”. Like I said, upward pressure.
Will all that translate into a win here? We’ll have to see but in a shortened campaign, the importance of winning early is exaggerated. Yes, you ideally want to win every game (that usually makes things nice and simple) but the Champions Cup pool campaign is usually heavily dictated by the end of the back to backs in December. In a year where you won’t be able to deal directly with the teams competing with you, ensuring you control the selection intent of your future opponents. Essentially, a win over Harlequins and Clermont in the first two rounds makes it more likely that you can encourage a weaker selection in your opponents for the return fixtures in January.
Let’s have a look at the teams;
Harlequins: 15. Mike Brown, 14. Nathan Earle, 13. Luke Northmore, 12. Ben Tapuai, 11. Cadan Murley; 10. Marcus Smith, 9. Danny Care; 1. Joe Marler, 2. Scott Baldwin, 3. Wilco Louw, 4. Hugh Tizard, 5. Glen Young, 6. James Chisholm, 7. Will Evans
8. Alex Dombrandt (c)
Replacements: 16. Elia Elia, 17. Santiago Garcia Botta, 18. Fin Baxter, 19. Richard De Carpentier, 20. Tom Lawday, 21. Scott Steele, 22. James Lang, 23. Ross Chisholm
Harlequins are a really well-coached side.
Paul Gustard has a progressive way of looking at the game, at least that’s my perception from the outside looking in and you can tell that by some of his hires. Even though Sean Long’s time as Quin’s attack coach came to an end back in October – he’s back coaching Leeds Rhinos in League – the logic behind hiring a rugby league guy was solid. What better way to crack rugby league style defences with a rugby league attack coach? And while the onfield results weren’t immediately overwhelmingly positive – Quins were middle of the pack for tries scored last season – they were encouraging on the whole and I think Sean Long would have brought some very interesting concepts on a longer-term basis but it wasn’t to be.
After watching a fair bit of Quins over the last few weeks, I began to see some familiar concepts. Back in June 2019, I wrote an article called For Every Wall A Hammer, where I looked at different rugby league concepts and how they would translate over to Union. One of the biggest takeaways I got from watching league was the possibility for offensive depth as a way to hijack opposition defensive line speed.
Rugby League has 10m of offensive space baked into every offensive set after every tackle/ruck. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to Union because the opposition defensive line is lined up at the hindmost point of the ruck (at least in theory). Line speed, as it’s come to be known, is effectively denying offensive space to the opposition so that every action with the ball – be it a pass or carry – is done so under space and time pressure.
A lot of modern-day attack prioritises playing flat on the gain line to, in some ways, bring the pressure to the defence. When you combine a flat attack with quick ball and tight interplay on the gain line, that can be a way to break line speed but to do it effectively, you need big ball carrying assets to consistently buckle the opposition’s defensive shape and, at some point, you need to accept a need for relatively low percentage passes on or slightly before the gainline.
Quins play flat at times off #9 but it’s their work with Marcus Smith at #10 that really caught my eye. Have a look at this phase and see if the depth Smith and his target pod stands out to you.
That’s all happening pretty deep from the gainline right?
Smith is around 6m back from the gainline with a two-man pod in a narrow stack, both relative to each other and to Smith’s starting position. Esterhuizen, the pass target here, is comfortably 13m back from the gainline as the ball leaves Care’s hands and while this play looks bad because of the lost gainline, we need to look deeper.
Look at the way Exeter’s line speed leader slows down as he reaches the midway point between the gainline and Esterhuizen’s starting point on this phase. That slowdown probably convinced Esterhuizen to have a crack off his inside shoulder but the smarter play was moving the ball wide to the deeper, wider runners.
Exeter were drawn out of their defensive “comfort zone” into a weird half-space where they’d been running for 6/7m on a short side phase and still hadn’t reached contact. By the time the Exeter defenders were in range of Quins attacking line, there was no line speed – they were slowed to a trot and Esterhuizen had the advantage; he just made a poor decision.
When you look at Quins attacking sequences, you see this depth everywhere and it makes sense. Why would you send your 5’9″, 12 and a half stone flyhalf motoring into the teeth of heavy hitters like CJ Stander or Gavin Coombes? Why would you fill up his collision card on a flat attack when he’s incredibly elusive in space, when he’s got a massive passing range off both sides and when he’s got a sophisticated, varied kicking game?
The depth that Quins play with accentuates his skillset.
Look at this try against Northampton and watch how Smith’s depth and passing range plays into the success of the sequence.
The second Smith pass into a wide space is a common sight with Quins. They are happy to combine depth and width to create passing isolations in those wide areas. The pass wasn’t even all that accurate – it was just outside the press of the defence and that alone was enough to create the isolation they wanted.
This was pulled back for obstruction, but you see this principle of play in so much of Harlequins work. Pass to depth, maintain depth and then hit wide attackers outside the press of the defence.
Once again, the target here is Esterhuizen and when the ball leaves Care’s hands he’s comfortably 16m (at least) away from the gainline in a relatively narrow stack.
That will naturally draw the Saints defenders up and in towards the obvious ball target and while Quins got a bit of luck on the release pass from Esterhuizen – look for Earls to snaffle one of these for an intercept – it produced that wide “flow” space where defenders are tracking across but Quins are going forward.
Quins use this depth to give Smith a lot of options on a phase – a lot of them through his varied kicking game.
The natural depth that Quins’ structures give Marcus Smith means he can go down the line, across the field for contestables and look for crossfield kicks off compressed set-pieces when Care finds him with a deep pass.
One of the consistent pictures you see with Marcus Smith and Quins is chip kicks over the top of the defensive line. It would be highly unusual if we don’t see Smith use this technique at least once.
It’s an effective tactic and it’s one that Smith deploys very smartly. It also serves to slow the advance of the opposition defensive press into the deep Harlequins attacking structure. When you’re concerned about Smith’s chip kick over the top to Dombrandt, you aren’t running as hard into the space Quins give you which makes life easier for them.
From a Munster perspective, the key is muscling up off #9 to stall and slow Quins setups and attacking up and in from the outside.
Quins will be without Esterhuizen – a key two-way passing and deep carrying threat – so I think we can afford to be aggressive in our chase lines on Quins deep-lying structures. The key defensive players will be Farrell, Conway, Earls and the coverage in the backfield of Haley.
If we make passing wide into flow space in the 15m channel “expensive” for Quins, we can force their central carriers off Smith back into the teeth of De Allende, Stander and Beirne, which opens up some breakdown steals at best and Quins dramatically losing gainline at worst as long as we make our tackles.
Haley’s positioning behind the edge of the defence will be critical. If he lurks too close to catch any breaking wide attackers, he leaves huge kickable space for Smith to find. If he stays too deep to guard against the kick action, he risks leaving that flow space open for an angled grubber or a floating lob pass across the defence.
If we can stop Quins here, there will be intercept opportunities and the potential for deep breakdown jackal penalties for Stander, O’Mahony, Beirne, Cronin and Coombes. The deeper Quins play, the more potential our jackals have to hurt them repeatedly.
It’s all set up very nicely.
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