At first glance, it would seem that Munster couldn’t be playing the Ospreys at a better time.
They’ve won one of their last five games, two of their last nine games and are without a win on the road in the PRO14 since the start of the season. And that’s just on a grand scale.
If we’re to narrow our focus, the Ospreys last two games have been season long lows with regards to result and performance. A 37-10 loss away to Edinburgh followed by a 47-6 home loss to a Glasgow Warriors side missing half a squad to international duty are alarming results, even during a Test window.
The Ospreys are rooted to the bottom of Conference A and, on the balance of their season so far, they can’t have any complaints. At this point, it’s fair to say that Champions Cup qualification is already beyond them and that can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the squad mentality.
You can choose to take the season piece by piece and play with the freedom that comes with no expectations or you can allow the death of the season as a competitive outlet to allow standards to slip into dangerous territory that gets coaches sacked and players moved on.
We’ll see which direction Ospreys are going in this Saturday evening in Musgrave Park.
Let’s have a look at the teams;
A pretty strong selection for the last Test window game when you account for the injuries in the squad at the moment and the guys on mandatory rest post November Series.
Here’s the Ospreys side that will be looking to make amends for that disaster in the Liberty Stadium last week;
Ospreys
15 Dan Evans, 14 Hanno Dirksen, 13 Kieron Fonotia, 12 James Hook, 11 Jeff Hassler, 10 Sam Davies, 9 Tom Habberfield
1 Gareth Thomas, 2 Sam Parry, 3 Dmitri Arhip, 4 Lloyd Ashley, 5 Bradley Davies (Capt), 6 Olly Cracknell, 7 Will Jones, 8 James King
Replacements: 16 Scott Baldwin, 17 Rowan Jenkins, 18 Ma’afu Fia, 19 Rob McCusker, 20 Guy Mercer, 21 Reuben Morgan-Williams, 22 Luke Price, 23 Joe Thomas
They’re missing an awful lot of guys.
Nicky Smith, Rhodri Jones, Adam Beard, Alun Wyn Jones, Sam Cross, Dan Lydiate, Rhys Webb, Dan Biggar, and Owen Watkin are all away with Wales. On top of that, they have 13 injured players, including Justin Tipuric, Keelan Giles, Paul James, Ashley Beck, Cory Allen and Dan Baker.
So they’re up against it here – to say the least – even if they can welcome back Keiron Fonotia to the #13 shirt.
Attacking Threats
Playing the Ospreys during a Test window usually means dealing with their Sam Davies centred attacking game plan. I cover a lot of that in the Red Eye for the away game earlier in the season (link here) and, having watching their last few games, not much has changed.
They have added this little wrinkle to their play and I’d expect to see this at the weekend with Fonotia at 13;
They’ve used this play (or a variation of it off Hook instead of Davies) a few times this season to mixed success but they especially like to use it against linespeed defences when they’re finding it tough to carry ball through the forwards.
As per usual, we’ll have to watch Sam Davies link up play flat to the gain line with Fonotia and Hassler, as it’s a go to move for them when they aren’t getting a lot of go-forward through their designated carriers. They’ll be standing a little wider than usual – or using Hook at first receiver – as Tandy will be likely looking to test Arnold in the 13 channel, so watch for Davies stepping to 12 with a bit of depth.
Lineout
A lot of their lineout plays are pretty identical to earlier in the season with the usual tell of the loosehead prop being the key to most of their lifts.
I don’t have any extended footage of the Glasgow game, but I was able to examine the Edinburgh game in full and I found a lot of the same schemes from when I last paid any detailed attention to them.
They have added this call to their playlist;
That’s ball to 3 position, with Bradley Davies feinting to the front and the loosehead decoying to Davies initial position before lifting Ashley.
The variation is this;
A broadly similar jump pattern (without the feint action from loosehead lifter) but with the ball going to Davies at the front. Generally, if you see Davies moving to the front on ball like this, it’ll go to him if there’s no loosehead movement in the line. Most of Ospreys’ lineout calls can be decoded by watching the loosehead’s action.
They’ll go to great lengths to use the loosehead lifter all through the line and if you follow the triggers, you can see where their target is.
James is White #1 in this GIFNormally Tom James is that loosehead lifter but, as he’s injured, they’ll be relying on Gareth Thomas playing this role on his first PRO14 start. I’d expect the Ospreys to stay with the same loosehead reliance on their more complex calls, given how slow in the air they are on their basic patterns.
That lack of speed in the air has been a problem all season, and it essentially makes ball to the tail a high risk option.
Look at this one as an example;
They shorten the numbers in the lineout, stack a lift pod at the tail pre-throw and they still get beaten in the air. The throw wasn’t great either but there’s no way Ospreys should be losing this ball if they stack numbers there in advance.
This lack of speed in the air (on the way up and, crucially, on the way down) make them a side that you can be confident of defending them in maul situations.
This set up is way, way too slow and you can see Edinburgh timing the counter-shove easily. There’s no variation in the angle of the ball and the maul set-up itself is poor.
That gives Edinburgh time, an angle and enough initial momentum to stifle this redzone maul fairly effectively.
Ospreys body positions aren’t great either but I could be here all day talking about that.
Loose Phases
When you’re attacking the Ospreys, you’ll soon find that they’re a pretty robust side if you give them one out tackles to make. You’ll often see them go through 10+ phases of defence if you take them on around the fringes or in areas where they can go man for man in defence. Their problems come around the sweet spot of 4/5 phases if you can expose their lack of defensive pace in their tight five. That generally means running a pattern off set piece that traps Davies, Ashley, Parry/Baldwin and especially Arhip on one side of a centre field ruck.
There’s no way your tighthead prop should be the “C” defender at any point on a phase defence with a hooker and lock inside him. And, while I’m at it, there probably shouldn’t be 5 men on the other side guarding two Edinburgh runners.
They show this alignment problem on centre field ruck again and again
And always on the left hand side of the ruck from an attacking perspective;
The Ospreys lack of pace all across their test window pack means that they have to pack the midfield with their tight five to make sure their backrow numbers up on the opposition backrow if they’re positioned on the flanks.
If you go through multiple phases, you’ll eventually isolate the tight five on a centre field ruck if you can spread the ball across the pitch before hand
They’ll always be on the left side of the wide attacking ruck as you run onto the ball so they don’t get caught on the blindside.
If Munster can get pace runners hitting lines into this alignment (which shows up for the Ospreys again and again) there’s real potential for linebreaks right up the middle of the pitch.
