Ask any former player of any level where the most difficult position to play is and, in all likelihood, they’ll tell you it’s the position that they played in.
I’m no different. Seeing as how this is the first in my Coaching Handbook series, I thought it would be good to focus on the position of openside flanker as it’s played in the modern game. It’s a position that has several different configurations depending on how you specialise with your skillset and physicality but there are a few key qualities that are non-negotiable; elite fitness, elite communication, mental toughness, massive work rate and an elite reading/understanding of the game.
If you have those as a base, you’ll go a long way in the position.
When I think of my ideal openside flanker, I think of Richie McCaw.
To my mind, there’s no better openside flanker to learn from, especially if you look at McCaw’s work towards the end of his career when his natural physical gifts were on the wane but his overall level of performance was still at the very highest standard. When he didn’t have the pace or power that he once did, he made up for it with every shortcut in the book and maximised his output in the game through the quality of his decision making. If you can learn from McCaw at age 34/35, then your game at 18/19 can only improve.
I’ll get into the attacking work I associate with top-level openside flankers in the second part of this series but I wanted to focus on the defensive side of the ball in this article to give it the time it deserves.
Defensive Scenarios
Everyone associates openside flankers with breakdown poaching but that’s only a fraction of any openside’s job and a good openside isn’t judged on the number of breakdown steals they pick up – far from it.
The best openside flankers know their team’s defensive system inside out and will only “attack” breakdowns when the opportunity arises. They won’t go hunting breakdown steals “off-system” because that leaves gaps elsewhere that an openside must fill.
When we talk about the defensive qualities of a good openside, we have to break the skill set down into mental and physical qualities.
Mental
- Aggression – do you want to destroy your opponent in every single defensive action you take?
- Mental toughness – are you willing to put your body on the line for the team?
- Good anticipation and reading of body language – can you read where the opposition is going off a scrum by the body language of the halfbacks, other forwards or midfielders?
- Reaction Speed – can you react to what you see on the pitch before everyone else?
- Enthusiasm – do you go looking for work and relish getting back off the ground before everyone else?
- Intelligence and Mental Endurance – do you know the laws of the game? Do you still know the laws of the game after 70 minutes of hard work when you’re blowing black smoke after 20 phases of defence?
Physical
- Power – core and shoulder strength in particular
- Pace & Acceleration
- Physical Endurance
- Agility and Dexterity
These are the core “must-haves” for me. Some opensides can specialise in heavy ball carrying or lineout jumping – as McCaw did towards the tail end of his career – but they are extras to the position in my opinion.
Let’s get into the different defensive scenarios.
1st Phase Defence – Scrum
Before you think about your scrummaging responsibilities on defensive scrums – and the angle that you might be forced to take while keeping your bind – you have to take the time to observe the opposition halfbacks and midfield runners with an eye on your responsibilities depending on the scrum position. Look for tells, like an advancing blindside winger, or a midfielder with his hips turned inwards. This is where your video work the week of the game will stand to you if you have it available. Take a mental picture of what you see on the field at the very last second before you pack down for the scrum.
When you’re scrummaging, you want to track your prop as best you can. When the scrum is “live” you want to keep your spine straight and give your prop as much shoulder as you can. You can’t have your head “up” for this – you have to keep your packed down position to drive straight.
As soon as you get the call from your halfback that the ball is at the back of the scrum, you can give yourself a bit of licence to peek up from the scrum to get your second picture.
In the above instance, McCaw can “feel” the scrum starting to release, so allows himself a glance over the top. This is where your game intelligence comes into play – what’s changed since the pack down? Who has advanced? Who has moved? Who has recessed from the gain line? What’s the #8 and #9 doing? Where is the #10? These are the equations you have to work out in the split second you’ll get before the break from the scrum.
An openside will primarily defend off a scrum set-piece with their left shoulder so you have to make sure that you condition that shoulder effectively if you’re right hand dominant. McCaw was left-handed and, weirdly enough, this actually gives any developing openside a slight leg up when you’re working on your shoulder conditioning. Why is it important? Most opensides do the majority of their hitting off scrum defensive sets with their left shoulder off scrums in most defensive systems. Why? When the scrum is on the right-hand of the pitch – shoulder left for the openside – the openside is usually closer to the action than the covering scrumhalf.
On these scrums, we want our openside hunting and destroying the ball whether it comes from #8, #9, #10 or someone else.
In close-quarter situations off the scrum, we want our openside stopping and turning the ball option and preventing an advance over the gainline if at all possible. A soak tackle here is no good because you give up gain line and get taken out of the next phase or two.
We always want our openside to push the line speed off the scrum and track wider balls with a straight angle of approach to cut down on wasted movement. We don’t want to see our openside taking long looping lines off the scrum – pick a point and attack it straight.
When the scrum is on the left-hand side of the field, the scrumhalf is often the primary defender on the players usually covered by our openside (opposition #8, #9, and #10) so our openside will usually cover the inside option.
This is where our openside will be looking to hit the #10 with his outside (right) shoulder and watch for the inside ball to a blindside wing or a switching midfielder with his left shoulder while always tracking the play in straight lines.
Watch McCaw on this GIF. See how he covers inside Smith? Even though Australia stitch the ball to the opposite side of the pitch, McCaw is still the first forward at the ruck – look at how he’s always running in straight lines. He doesn’t try to hedge his tracking by bending his running line; he picks a spot and adjusts with another straight line if necessary. He’s not wasting any motion off this scrum.
Here you can see McCaw covering Smith’s inside shoulder. This is what I’m talking about with the inside cover option off left-sided defensive scrums. As for the running lines, I tracked McCaw’s movements in the below graphic.
McCaw is taking straight, aggressive lines and reading the play as he goes. If he goes too aggressive, he risks overrunning the ball and we want our openside to stay on the inside shoulder of the attack to push our opponents out when they take the ball wide. We want our openside to stay “try line side” of the ball at all times when tracking across off a scrum. If they are tracking left to right from a scrum, we want our openside to track slightly to the left of the ball. If they are tracking right to left from a scrum, we want our openside to track slightly to the right of the ball.
If the openside isn’t the player tackling the ball carrier off the scrum, he has to be the first player at the breakdown following it. When you get to the breakdown, your mindset always has to be “slow at all costs, steal if I can”. If you can’t do either, move file out into the line to lead the line speed.
Let’s watch Richie McCaw off this right-sided scrum.
See the difference from the left-hand side scrum? On this one, McCaw takes a super aggressive line into the #10 channel to protect his flyhalf – a key part of the role while also looking to destroy the opposition #10 – and then follows the play across, tracking slightly inside the play. He doesn’t make the tackle but he does have a go off slowing the ball at the breakdown. There’s another key part in his approach to the defensive breakdown.
See how McCaw adjusted his angle of attack once the tackle was made?
He’s giving himself all the leeway he needs to get an aggressive angle of ruck entry. McCaw would always skirt the law between what was the legal “gate” and what gave him the best look at a disrupting counter ruck and you should be too.
When you hit this ruck, you’re looking to drive through the guard without overcommitting yourself to the breakdown. The last thing that any openside wants to do in defensive situations is get tied up, be it in a ruck, a maul, or over-committing in the scrum. You don’t need to steam over the guard if it isn’t on – all you need to do time your attack to knock the guard back into their scrumhalf and possibly force a knock-on. This is especially useful if the guard hasn’t latched onto the ball carrier on the floor, as is often the way with backs covering rucks in wider areas off first phase scrum plays, and it keeps you alive for the next phase.
The openside always has to have that destructive instinct – if you’re not the tackler, you have to be the man attacking the ruck. Here’s a good example of the instincts I spoke about from Sam Cane – another top openside – in 2014, who ended up defending a 5m scrum from the #8 position.
Even though he’s in the #8 position, watch the instincts.
