[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]his is one of those dead rubber games at the end of a season that you work at the start of the season to obtain. The last time we faced the Scarlets was on the opening weekend of this very season and it took a Ben Healy penalty launched from the car park of Parc Y Scarlets in red time to nail down what looked like an unlikely win with just 10 minutes left. That win, combined with another against Edinburgh a week later, has been the difference in this conference. The echoes of those two opening wins have created cognitive space for Munster over the last two weeks of the regular season. A big win last week against Connacht means that Johann Van Graan and his team have two weeks to prepare for a final showdown with Leinster at the end of March with a first trophy in 10 years on the line.
Does that make this game a dead rubber? Yes, technically, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot to look out for here. These next two weeks are an exercise in ensuring game time is spread out around the squad, sure, but it’s also vital that Munster begin to fine-tune what we hope will work against Leinster and build quality minutes into a returning Joey Carbery.
Let’s have a look at the selection;
Scarlets: 15. Johnny McNicholl; 14. Tom Prydie, 13. Tyler Morgan, 12. Steff Hughes (c), 11. Steff Evans; 10. Angus O’Brien, 9. Dane Blacker; 1. Steffan Thomas, 2. Marc Jones, 3. Pieter Scholtz, 4. Morgan Jones, 5. Sam Lousi, 6. Aaron Shingler, 7. Jac Morgan, 8. Sione Kalamafoni.
Replacements: 16. Taylor Davies, 17. Kemsley Mathias, 18. Alex Jeffries, 19. Tevita Ratuva, 20. Uzair Cassiem, 21. Will Homer, 22. Paul Asquith, 23. Johnny Williams
The Scarlets have had a tricky season.
They’ve been squarely in the “best of the rest” category for the sides outside of the Irish provinces but they’ve consistently found it difficult to stick try bonus points on the majority of their opposition. They are around the middle of the pack when it comes to tries scored but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Munster have the fourth-highest number of tries scored in the tournament (41) after 14 games. Scarlets are fifth but they’ve “only” scored 29 tries in the same number of games; that’s 11 tries worth of a difference. Compared to last season, where Scarlets scored 46 tries in 15 games, there’s been an obvious drop-off but that’s been happening tournament wide and relatively speaking, Glenn Delaney’s side are actually ahead of where they were last season. Seventh in tries last season, fifth so far this season, but in a league that is scoring fewer tries year on year.
What’s gone wrong? Well, for the Scarlets at least, they’ve had a lot of issues with losing possession. They have the most turnovers in the league after 14 regular seasons rounds and the second-worst penalty concession rate. Some of that has been indiscipline and some of that has been a vulnerability at the breakdown that is baked into their attacking structures.
Offensively, the Scarlets are doing some very interesting things from a structural perspective. Check out this big openside phase against Cardiff back in January.
McNicholl, who started on the wing in this game, is acting as the first receiver with the rest of the back three – Halfpenny and Evans – on a loop route infield screened by a pod of forwards with Dan Jones, the flyhalf, recessed behind them.
These are not typical positions for wingers and fullbacks. A playmaking fullback, perhaps, but this kind of positional and role set versatility seems to be something of a theme for the Scarlets regardless of who’s playing.
In the following phase, Jones split between Elias and Evans, who had angled his run out to produce a brief 3 on 2 opportunity for the Scarlets with Evan’s inside route being a key part of the scheme.
He’s a winger, yet he’s taking the ball in a position you’d typically expect of a centre in this part of the field but this is a classic “slot receiver” style line from Evans where he’s an inside runner rather than a player hugging the touchline. He can play that wide, touchline role too, but part of Scarlets’ attacking scheme is to completely unhinge their back three from what would be orthodox positions.
On the very next phase, you see Halfpenny running behind a screen as a receiver – again, nothing out of the ordinary there – but McNicholl’s position as the second receiver while Johnny Williams runs on the outside is something you don’t see every day.
Evans and McNicholl (who’s selected at fullback here) will show up everywhere and Scarlets will look to load them on the same wing as Prydie. Prydie runs these lines too, to an extent, but he’s not as comfortable on-ball as Evans and McNicholl. Just watch these clips to get an idea of how Evans and McNicholl will dovetail.
They’ll often end up as a central chain of possession with the likes of Morgan and Hughes running outside them as strike runners in the wide channels alongside Kalamafoni, Morgan and Shingler.
The key part of this structure, however, is how vulnerable those wide ruck positions are. Scarlets need to look for width because they aren’t really configured to chew through the phases between the 22s. Getting that width through looped back three runners is a good, modern way to get around size and power disadvantages they encounter pretty regularly at the upper end of the PRO14 and in Europe.
But to get the stacks they use on big openside plays they use a lot of players in the middle space and a lot of screens to work the ball to where they want it. This puts their wide rucks under pressure.
Even their wider breaks off two passes when they’re flowing often find themselves in a numbers squeeze where they are either making a linebreak that leads to a try or getting turned over with very little middle ground.
This also shows up off #9 a lot when the Scarlets look to set up. To keep from predictably shipping everything beyond 10, they have to use a lot of pace and forward handling on their work off #9 to work with their larger scheme but they have a tendency to under resource these set up rucks, especially if they lose the collision. I’ve paused the clips below when I see Scarlets in danger of being turned over or stripped in contact.
That’s before you get to the balls they knock on when the front five’s skillset comes under pressure before or in contact. If Munster can muscle up in defence off #9 – and we’ve selected a pack to do just that – there will be reef and jackal opportunities that, if we convert them, can lead to massive damage on turnover ball.
We should also have an advantage in the scrum and maul which should, going on Scarlets performance so far this season in those areas, be an area where we can take constant advantage. Stress their carriers off #9, play off any turnovers but live with the scrummage as I really do think we can chase after them there given the makeup of both packs.
