70 minutes on the clock, 7 points down, and a lineout on the opponent’s 5m line.
You maul it, right? Right. The only question is where you maul it. That question of the front, the middle or the back is a key part of any lineout scheme this close to the try line, especially when the size of the opposition is a problem.
Against the Ospreys, Munster had a scheme to extend the touchline space so they could avoid being shoved straight into touch and then maul into that space. This was a shift maul – Munster took the ball at one point of the line but set up the maul at a different point by shifting the ball there before the maul was built.
On Saturday night against Racing, Munster were back on the 5m line with a desperate need for a try. The picture they faced was, as they had found throughout the game, a difficult one. Racing had their five primary lineout contesters guarding the middle and tail space of the lineout.
Palu, Ryan, Sanconnie, Lauret and Claassen are either tall, high wingspan jumpers or explosive pace jumpers and each of them are more than capable of lifting the other. So, in other words, an absolute nightmare to attack. Wherever you throw, they have the ability to contest in the air or, should they choose not to, athletically counter maul. This is a key part of Racing’s forward game plan.
Munster knew this – and had been taking measures to circumvent it since midway through the first half – but at this stage in the game, a clean maul turnover of any kind would have been a key tactical and mental defeat. Whatever option we chose would have to (a) retain possession (b) get us beyond the 5m line and (c) get numbers up on the next phase as a bare minimum. Ideally, we’d score a try directly from whatever we’d do, but you can’t guarantee that before the throw.
What did Munster do? They went into their bag of tricks from a few years back.
This pod at the front of the lineout – Mike Haley standing between Rory Scannell and James Cronin – probably looks like a pointless decoy to Racing.
If Munster were to throw to Haley here, he’d be sacked or driver back almost immediately by Palu and Ryan so, from Racing’s perspective, this pod is a distraction to divert attention from where Munster are likely to throw.
I think Racing assumed that Munster would throw here.
Botha and Holland are already in position and O’Mahony is standing with Archer almost pre-bound behind him.
Besides, if you’re Racing, you’re more than OK with Munster taking the front of the lineout. We’ll lift through Botha sliding between Cronin and Stander for the lift or shunt Munster back if we go for a no-jump maul. If anything, the Haley pod is a set up to move Palu and Ryan to the front so the middle opens up for a maul build.
The key part of this set up is the amount of time Racing know it’ll take to build a maul because of how spread out all of our forwards are.
If we build in the middle with a three-man launch pod of Cronin, Botha and Holland, it’ll take a few seconds for Stander, O’Mahony and Archer to swing around, if Wycherley comes straight in to take possession from Botha and in that time, Ryan, Palu and Sanconnie will get a massive counter-shove on landing or even compete in the air.
Racing know this, so they’re concentrating on Botha’s position.
Here’s where it gets fun. Let’s play it out.
Haley takes the ball, drops it down to Stander and Wycherley then binds onto him to drive him through the lineout towards the try line.
There’s a lot going on here so let’s go step by step.
First, once Haley jumps for the throw, we have to manipulate Racing’s infield defence by setting up a fake maul position on Botha’s original starting position.
This is to keep Sanconnie, Lauret, Claassen and their hooker Baubigny on the posts-side of the maul away from where we’re actually going. Mathewson’s decoy line is to copper fasten this idea and keep attention on the posts-side of this maul as Stander and Wycherley target Ali Oz and Simon Zebo at the front of the lineout and edge of the maul for a Sniper Maul – or a micro 2 on 1 offensive maul.
Remember, all we need for a maul is three people – our ball carrier, a player from our side and a player from their side. The first picture on the World Rugby site about the laws of the maul features the very picture that Munster are looking to generate in this instance.
To fully get the value from this move, we want a maul to be formed so that any entries from the players our fake maul and scrumhalf decoy have kept on the posts-side of the maul will be penalties.
Now Ali Oz is a big man in a team of big men – 6’4″ and 140kg – so if we’re going to snipe him along the side of this maul we need to ensure we catch him on his outside shoulder. If we drive into him straight on, he’s got a good chance of taking this out. We can only transfer the ball away from Stander once we make contact with Oz so he can sack this legally if he takes it down on contact. If we make contact with his outside shoulder and peel out, we’ll unbalance him, make enough contact to start our sniper maul and then have full maul penalty protection from Palu, Ryan and Sanconnie as they try to come across. Play it right and we might even get a penalty try from it.
That didn’t happen, even though the overall outcome was positive. We caught Oz on his inside shoulder, making it easier for him to sack our sniper maul. You can see how this would bring in Zebo too.
What went wrong? One small detail lets us down – the timing of Haley’s release of the ball at the top of the jump. When the ball comes down off the top, Oz sees it and doesn’t commit to the side of the maul as much as we need him to.
You can see it here.
Oz catches the drop of the ball and it keeps him alive on the play for half a second too long. When we broke this out against Leinster a few years back, you can see the difference that the timing of the release makes to the overall quality of the move.
Murray doesn’t release the ball until well after the peak of the jump. That isolated Treacy at the edge of the maul and this really should have been a penalty try to Munster, given that Toner tackled Kleyn without the ball at best and came in from the side of a maul at worst.
The timing of the release of the ball from Murray sets the edge of the maul better because the counter-shovers assume it’s a maul once the ball is still in the player’s hands beyond the initial drop off the jump.
It was a hair away from paying off properly and it’s another example of Munster’s inventive work in the lineout this season.
https://laws.worldrugby.org/?law=16&language=EN
