[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]his season – and the pandemic it has tried admirably to navigate – has shown us all that there is nothing so certain in life as “things change”. Munster were supposed to be in London this weekend to finish out the Champions Cup pool against Harlequins but, things change, and here we are looking at an impromptu, logistics busting re-schedule of our COVID cancelled game against Leinster from St. Stephen’s Day.
I’m grateful for that. COVID has changed a lot of what we thought would happen this season – it was inevitable – but at least we’ll get to see Munster vs Leinster in Thomond with close to full teams on a Saturday night. The tension will probably be too much to bear, at times – it always is – but it’s better than watching the Masked Singer.
So that brings us to the main event. The Stakes are pretty high for both sides. Leinster are five points behind Ulster in Conference A with two games in hand – this is one of them – so a win here would strike a decisive blow in their scrap for a final on March 27th as well as giving them another win in Thomond Park, something that Leo Cullen has often prioritised when playing resources have been budgeted around the Christmas period in years gone by.
For Munster, there’s less and more at stake. We’ve currently got an 11 point buffer at the top of Conference B so, while a loss here isn’t fatal to our chances of finishing top, it is a game of extreme significance. Win, and there will be a feeling that Munster have truly progressed to the “next level”. Lose, and it will feel like more than a few steps back. As ever with feelings, there is no way to accurately measure the impact of a win or a loss in this fixture when there isn’t a tangible “win or go home” set of stakes attached but that doesn’t mean that “feelings” aren’t important. Feelings dictate the mood around the camp, feelings dictate the vibe around the club and if you think feelings aren’t important, see what they’re like when you’re losing more games than you win when you’re expected to do the opposite. We don’t have to look too far back to see what those feelings look like.
We aren’t that point now – far from it – but when it’s Leinster, everything is accelerated. The stakes are higher purely because it’s Munster vs Leinster and the peculiarities of the current moment only make that focus that more intense.
Strap yourself in.
Leinster Rugby: 15. Hugo Keenan, 14. Jordan Larmour, 13. Garry Ringrose, 12. Robbie Henshaw, 11. Jimmy O’Brien; 10. Johnny Sexton (c), 9. Luke McGrath; 1. Cian Healy, 2. Sean Cronin, 3. Andrew Porter, 4. Scott Fardy, 5. James Ryan, 6. Rhys Ruddock, 7. Will Connors, 8. Caelan Doris
Replacements: 16. Ronan Kelleher, 17. Ed Byrne, 18. Tom Clarkson, 19. Ross Molony, 20. Jack Conan, 21. Jamison Gibson-Park, 22. Ross Byrne, 23. Josh van der Flier
The noise around box kicking this week was predictably dull.
Some members of the rugby media just can’t seem to get over that Munster’s approach to the PRO14 semi-final five months ago featured quite a bit of box kicking. A lot of the headlines generated this week came directly from journalists chasing a narrative over Munster’s kicking game in that semi-final as if it were some grand failure of strategy.
If you only focus on the result then, of course, the kicking game didn’t work because Munster lost. That the narrow 13-3 defeat owed a lot to Munster’s inability to take the opportunities presented by the in-game strategy is neither here nor there when you reduce the game down to the scoreboard and the scoreboard only.
In total, Munster box kicked 13 times against Leinster in that semi-final and left at least two kickable penalties behind at key points in the game. Afterwards, Leo Cullen was quick to point out that, supposedly, all Munster “want to do is box kick” and a few weeks later, Leinster lost at home to a depleted Saracens side who box kicked 16 times in total.
Maybe Munster should have box kicked a few more times? You would think that such a sharp – and timely – illustration of the power of the box kick as a tactical weapon so soon after the Munster game would have clued people in a bit more as to WHY a team would choose to use this strategy but apparently not.
So why would you kick more against this Leinster side?
Why did Munster do it? Why did Saracens do it? Why did Connacht do it a few weeks ago? It’s about building a sequence of play that you control while planting Leinster into an area of the field where they are left with an option to play into your defence in a disadvantageous area of the field or kick contestably themselves.
Ultimately, you want to win consecutive kicking duels with Leinster, ideally pressurising their receipt, stressing their phases after the receipt if they retain possession and then taking the ball back from them in a better position than you kicked it from OR winning the ball back directly from the kick OR forcing a set-piece to win back possession or a penalty. Easy, right? If only, but this kind of thinking is the formation of a kicking strategy.
So what is a kicking strategy?
I’d describe it as your general decision-making framework to produce predictable or relatively predictable outcomes. A kicking strategy isn’t just how you kick or where you kick, it’s when you kick. So, for example, your kicking strategy might be that you kick and chase every turnover ball you get off opposition phase play like Munster used to do under Rassie Erasmus and Saracens used to do around the middle of the 2010s. It could be that you kick to reset any time you have possession inside your own 10m line with strict instructions not to burn any phases whatsoever there.
On Saturday, I expect Munster to go with a relatively conservative kicking plan based on this rough directive map.
Essentially, if you’re not making dramatic ground within one or two phases inside your own half, work the ball to the flank and then kick off #9 with a three-man pressure chase to draw across Keenan/Larmour or pull back the covering winger on that flank. This is most effective when Sexton is in the primary defensive line as opposed to when he’s patrolling the backfield when Leinster have comfortably contained the opposition deep in their own 22 so, for me, any possession 10m out from our try line is worth exiting straight to touch to have a go off Leinster’s lineout.
This is a decent contestible from Cooney but look at Sexton patrolling the backfield from that central position. He’s in the perfect position to potentially give Leinster immediate counter-kicking options as this transition plays out.
If we skip over to the Connacht game, we can see how effective Connacht were in their kicking duels when they kicked off a set-piece platform – when Sexton was in the primary defensive line. When Carty kicked down the middle, in between Leinster’s two wide backfield defenders, there was an element of predictability about Leinster’s work in the backfield once they collected the ball.
Connacht were prepared to meet a kick transition and the next few defensive phases forced Leinster to the right side of the field where McGrath exited through the box kick. Connacht retained the ball, pressured Leinster offensively around their 10m line and won a kickable penalty.
Saracens worked the same process in this example. Sexton was held in the defensive line after the first phase and Wigglesworth kicked immediately down the middle of the pitch to pinch in Leinster’s backfield under the box kick. It won a penalty.
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The principle behind kicking to pressure like this is multi-layered.
At its very basic level of success, it produces an outcome like this.
The kick produces a knock-on deep in Leinster territory, which produces a strong scrum launch to #12 right at Sexton and that leads to some close-range pressure phases, which produce a kickable penalty. Your kicking game won’t always produce immediate gains like this against Leinster but it’s a good framework to base your game off. Kick, pressure the receipt, win a set-piece, attack the set-piece. Saracens game plan was based, in large part, on this sequence.
More often than not, your kicking game won’t be as simple as this and it can look a lot like this; kicking from a positive, front foot position, pressurising the receipt and staying patient when you get the ball back in your. The second kick by Wigglesworth wasn’t the best but it was followed up by a relatively average return by Larmour.
Each time, Saracens manage the return kick from Leinster that little bit better. When Leinster move the ball through the phases, they run into relentless line speed. What stands out to me here is how comfortable Saracens are defending Leinster in that middle space of the field. For me, to work a kicking game effectively against Leinster you have to be comfortable defending Leinster in this middle ground in the phases after the receipt of the kick and work for a kickback.
You have to manage your numbers either side of the ruck, you have to pressure their breakdown with strong jackal entries and you have to prevent Leinster from getting outside you on the flanks through Sexton if he senses you’ve become unbalanced. If you can contain them after the kick without conceding too many metres – Leinster have the quality to go through 7+ phases quite easily here, as well as Gibson-Park’s breaking threat, so you have to stay patient and disciplined – you can force Leinster to kick back to you.
Ideally, you want McGrath or Gibson-Park choosing to exit through the box kick. Box kicking isn’t a natural skill for either player, in my opinion, and both have shown issues with over and undercooking on distance and allowing their kicks to drift infield.
Connacht used Carty’s kicking off #10 to pin Leinster back into their half on multiple occasions during their dominant first-half display that ultimately won them the game in the RDS a few weeks ago. Leinster lost Johnny Sexton after 20 minutes so, in the absence of any noted tactical kickers in their matchday squad, found themselves with a lot of possession and very little territory. Unable to clear their lines effectively, Connacht were able to pressure Leinster into mistakes because they attacked an exaggerated example of how dominating territory against Leinster can be effective.
Without Sexton on the field, the bulk of kicking fell to McGrath and Leinster were worse off for it in the first half of that game.
When Leinster want to exit through the boot, as with a lot of their work, they will tend to go through Sexton for a “garryowen” style exit as opposed to loading too much responsibility for their territorial kicking onto McGrath or Gibson-Park.
You’ll quite often see Leinster kicking for territory like this;
They’ll migrate across the field until they get to a relatively central position and then pop the ball back to Sexton who has the entire field to aim his kick into with two or three wider chasers tracking the ball. There are advantages and disadvantages to this kicking platform.
One huge advantage is that it gives you way more variety in where you are kicking to as it allows you to go for a high bomb if you see the space for it or change tack and drive the ball long down the channels or straight into the backfield. This is a direct benefit of being able to kick from central positions – which you can’t really do off #9 – and it’s also something that you can disguise/integrate into your phase play to take advantage of poor reads by wingers and other backfield defenders. It suits Leinster because it runs through Sexton.
One key disadvantage is that when you are kicking incontestably off #10, the ball tends to drift away from the chase more than a box kick because of the starting angle of the strike on the ball so the margins of error are much smaller for both the chase and the kick itself. You’ve also got to kick at a less aggressive angle because of your depth from the gainline when kicking.
Kicking off #9, likewise, has advantages and disadvantages.
Munster, for example, like to use a trident chase off Murray’s box kick with a touchline chaser, an inside pinch chaser (usually from #10) and a forward lagging slightly behind to attack the catcher in the tackle, at the ruck or support the Munster player if they claim the ball.
If you’ve got a good box kicker – and Murray is the best in the business – you can land the ball almost vertically on the opposition 5m tramline with your chasers already in a position to either swipe at the ball in the air, meet the catcher as he lands or contest for the ball directly in the jump.
If you successfully land it inside the 5m tramline but don’t retain the ball, you can fill the field on the openside and apply heavy line speed pressure on the subsequent phases, pin the opposition in place and encourage a kickback.
It’s the management of that kickback that will be key for Munster in this game.
In the PRO14 semi-final, I would argue that Munster’s kicking game was broadly effective but our work after the box kick was not. I go into that concept in detail here – Brief Windows of Opportunity – but, essentially, we will have to be very solid under the high ball – obviously – but also ensure we have good backfield coverage to increase the stakes for Sexton’s kicking.
If Munster can manage to pressure Leinster’s backfield and, at the very least, return Sexton/McGrath’s tactical exits, we have a game that can pressure Leinster into conceding opportunities. If we take them, Munster have a great shot at edging this game.
