[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]W[/su_dropcap]hen we think of our primary playmakers from a positional sense – forget jersey numbers for a minute – where do you see them on a wide ruck position? It’s probably closer to the ruck, maybe behind a pod of three forwards, right?

This is the typical first receiver position. It’s one of the most familiar sights in the game.

But even in this screenshot, what do you notice? Who is the player who has the clearest view of what Connacht’s defence looks like?

For me, it’s Chris Farrell, who is standing in the second receiver slot and not Ben Healy.

Think about it, where Farrell is standing gives him a view of the entire Connacht defence.

From his position, Farrell can clearly see;

• Their edge composition in the primary defensive line
• Their backfield alignment and their winger’s defensive routes in particular
• The tackle routes their C/D/E defenders will take

So with this knowledge, in theory, Farrell can bring wider players onto the ball, carry the ball himself or kick into space. Farrell is an excellent carrier and a much better passer than he’s given credit for, but I wouldn’t say he’s a top class kicker of the ball.

Why isn’t our playmaker in that position? This isn’t a Munster thing, by the way, because the vast majority of all teams play with their primary playmaker anchored to the ruck like this. Even here, Ben Healy would be relying on comms from Farrell to get the full picture of what’s happening outside him. Healy doesn’t get the ball here but if he did, he could be getting the ball with information passed on from Farrell, who has to process the information in front of him before sending a condensed version of that information to Healy, who then communicates to Casey. That’s a lot of “information lag” between the guy who has the clearest picture of the defence and the guy who’s supposed to make plays based on what the defence is doing.

If we think about it like wifi, the farther away from the router you are, the weaker the signal. We used to think that the ruck was the router but it isn’t – the centre of the field is.

That isn’t to say that the ruck isn’t important. It still exerts gravity on the opposition defence in that they have to populate the areas directly around it and structure their defence around it but the real damage is done in the position that teams will often design loop and decoy schemes to get their playmaker into – the middle of the field.

Why not put your primary playmaker there from the beginning? Yes, this is about playing with two playmakers but it’s even more simple than that – it’s about playing with a scrumhalf, a facilitating first receiver and a primary playmaker.

Forget about numbers – 10/12/13/15 – we need to think about getting the ball to the area of the field with the most amount of options and allow our playmakers to make things happen with all the info happening in front of them.

We want our primary playmaker to be the guy with the most amount of quality touches but they have to be a triple threat – capable of breaking, hitting offloads, short passes, medium-range passes, long-range slings and having a varied kicking game. They need to be able to drive the ball into the corners, produce chip kicks for on-rushing strike runners and have enough welly on the ball to make contestable kicks an option for everyone in their on-side radius.

If we scheme it out, we need to make some adjustments to our schemes to make this work fully. We need to assign a pocket runner to our primary playmaker – that is #12 here but it could be #10 or #15 or whoever – on almost every phase to give him a short ball option on either his inside or outside shoulder.

We want the flow of possession to go from scrumhalf to our first facilitator and then onto the primary handler. Speed on the ball through accurate passing will be of huge importance here. We want our primary playmaker to get a lot of touches so our facilitator must look to get him on-ball as often as possible from wide ruck positions.

Let’s draw this up – we’ll be kind to the defence and only take one of their defenders out of the game at the tackle area and we’ll burn two attackers at the same breakdown. Here’s how I think this scheme will look in a few years.

First thing you notice – no blindside numbers. I’m not against blindside attacks on principle but they are an incredibly low percentage play for me and the most amount of damage can be done by stacking the openside when the ball is in those 15-metre tramlines.

We want to move the ball to this central space to give our primary playmaker multiple pictures. As he advances with the ball, the wide forward three pod becomes open to him so the defence – who will naturally try to shoot up into his passing lanes – will have to do so with a lot of risk in behind because our playmaker still has multiple options.

The playmaker’s got his pocket runner ready for a short ball pop or an offload line if they want to carry and pass out of contact. The playmaker’s got short and long kicking options with the steps they have before the defence makes contact.

If the defence jockey on the wider forwards, the playmaker should have the range to hit the three targets who should always be within his eye line – short ball, medium flat ball and longer range pass into the next layer of the attack.

You can see the principles that underpin this in almost every good attacking piece of play in the modern game. Watch these brief clips from the recent Crusaders’ game and see the damage that Mo’unga’s passing range does when he’s in a central position with options arrayed outside him.

In the last example, you can see the damage that Goodhue does when he takes the ball from that exact deep central position. The momentum on the phase is so strong that his lack of a triple threat (carry, pass, kick) doesn’t really factor into it. It’s this principle that informs Toulouse’s use of Romain Ntamack as a “#12” when, in reality, he has as many quality offensive touches as Thomas Ramos or Zack Holmes, who Toulouse often start at #10.

Neither Ramos or Holmes have a whole lot of “control” as a #10 but they don’t really have to. A lot of the game managements happens inside them through Dupont or outside them with Ntamack. They facilitate the ball. This role allows them to focus on what they are good at; showing off their passing range by hitting the first pod of forwards, breaking when the opposition over-focus on Dupont or Ntamack but they also want that ball migrating out towards Ntamack to get him on-ball whenever possible.

I saw Munster A running a very similar style against Connacht Eagles last weekend. Flannery showed off his agility and passing range (his set kicking was superb too) and Crowley really thrived as the central playmaker. His set up for Nash’s try is a perfect example of the damage that kind of playmaker can do in the central space.

I’ve included a clip of Ntamack roving in that central position to show the juice that having an athletic creative player in that middle spot and freed from the ruck can bring.

You need to craft the rest of your team around this decision – and I’ll get to that next week – but I think that this style of playmaker and facilitator will be the norm in two or three seasons from now.