Breakdown - The Five Reasons why England lost to Ireland

The dust has settled, the bruises are healing and the Guinness-induced comas have *almost* cleared up, so now we’ve got the chance to look at why one side are still chasing a Grand Slam, and why the other is not.

 

The below are all areas where England failed to deliver – but you could also read them as areas where Ireland were simply better.  Either way, here are the 5 key battlegrounds that will be causing Stuart Lancaster to consider changing his apparently one sole facial expression (I call it 'mild contemplation').

1.  Poor Kick Chase

It was easy to declare that Johnny Sexton and Connor Murray had better games from the boot than Youngs and Ford, and to an extent that was true.  However, the latter were not helped by any stretch of the imagination by a kick chase that resembled a group of (rather burly) men ambling about on a Sunday stroll.  There were plenty of times when the half-backs put the ball in an area, with enough hang-time, for England to apply real pressure, but time and again the likes of Kearney and Zebo were allowed to gather the ball under no real pressure.  Compare that to Ireland, who had their wingers and back row haring after every kick, meaning that the likes of Goode and Watson were often met with a face-full of Irish elbow when attempting to claim any high ball, and meant that (more often than not) they were beaten to it.

2.  Rubbish Ruck Clearout

Yes, I should probably consider using a more technical term than ‘rubbish’ but it does seem appropriate, and it comes down to a mixture of aggression and technique, or a lack of both in England’s case on Sunday.  When Ireland decided to keep the ball in hand – not all that often, admittedly – they blasted English players out of the way before the carriers had even hit the ground, flying in low and hard to make it impossible for any white-shirted individual to get their hands on the ball.  At times it was like the England players were simply consumed by a green wave, but they could not replicate that themselves.  As a perfect example in the first half, Chris Robshaw carried well before being brought down by Tommy O’Donnell, but Dave Attwood (instead of getting underneath the backrower and cleaning him off the ball) damply draped himself over his man like a wet towel, missing the opportunity of the clearout, gifting Ireland the penalty and killing any English momentum.

3.  Poor Decision Making

Do you know which side kicks the most in world rugby?  The All Blacks.  The all-singing, all-dancing All Blacks.  And Ireland emulated that by refusing to play any rugby inside of their own half, putting the pressure onto England and seeing who would blink first.  And England did, spectacularly, like an overly flirtatious maid batting her eyelids.  Too often, on the odd occasion when England did field a kick without too much pressure, the temptation to run it back was too great and – especially in Goode’s case – they ran into problems more often than not.  There was also the youthful exuberance, so useful in so many ways but so self-destructive in others, which heaped pressure on the side – both Ford and Watson had moments where they skinned several defenders and broke free, but instead of taking smart options and holding onto the ball, they tried impossible offloads which were inevitably knocked on – the ability to keep your head, even when you’re “on a roll” will come with experience.

 

4.  Wobbly Set Piece

Ok, the scrum wasn’t wobbly as such, but it wasn’t the dominant force we expected.  It meant that one of the advantages, one of the platforms that England expected to be able to launch from was taken away.  Now, Dan Cole had a fine game in other aspects but the fact that the Irish eight weren’t marching backwards didn’t help England’s cause – but it was the lineout which was really troublesome.  Dylan Hartley is usually a reliable architect of a successful machine when it comes to lineouts, but on Sunday it had the nasty habit of collapsing at crucial moments – think of 5 metres out from the Irish line in the first half.  Although why Hartley decided to throw long in such a pressure situation with that beanpole Devin Toner lurking towards the back, is anyone’s guess.  England banked on dominating Ireland’s set-piece and securing all of their own – sadly, that didn’t happen.

5.  Indiscipline

At times on Sunday, the Aviva Stadium resembled a South American street-festival, such was the frequency of Craig Joubert’s whistle – mainly against the men in white, and the vast majority of it entirely justified.  Now some penalties are necessary, we all know that (slowing the ball down with the Irish camped on the line in the first half was one example) but the inability of players to listen to the referee and use their noggin cost England not only points but momentum in attacking positions as well.  James Haskell strikes me as a thoroughly nice bloke but I have to question his grey matter when he consistently decides to risk sticking his hands into the ruck, or flopping onto the wrong side, when there is no immediate threat.  He wasn’t the only one, but he was one of the main offenders in a list of mostly experienced players.

 

It’s not all bad news for England of course – they made more line breaks, beat more defenders and made more offloads than their Irish counterparts.  The statistics show that they were in fact the more dangerous side with the ball in hand – but it’s knowing when to pull the trigger which is the key to giving England a seat at the top table once again.

@ruckedover

Breakdown - Why George Ford Holds the Key Against Ireland

Another apology is due here, since I had intended to get this article up about 5 days ago, but oh no, my actual full-time job (the one that actually pays me) had to dictate that I work hard for once.  The nerve.  Anyway, we're here now, and so I thought I'd show why I think that one moment against Italy showed why George Ford is going to be crucial to England's chances in Dublin later today.

For once, pretty much all the noises made in relation to the England centre partnership have been positive of late.  Quite rightly, Jonathan Joseph has been picking up plaudits from all corners of the country for two scintillating performances, and his centre partner Luther Burrell has been solid inside him - although there are murmurings that his hard-running role would be better filled by Manu Tuilagi, if the Leicester man ever makes it up from the treatment table.  But they will face a much more robust challenge on Sunday - Robbie Henshaw and Jared Payne may not have quite hit the attacking heights they have done for their club, but they have been rock steady in defence.  It will take some smart and cunning with the ball in hand to get through the middle, and George Ford demonstrated how he can be the architect of creating that space a fortnight ago.

Off first phase, Ford received the ball of Twelvetrees, behind a blocking line from Burrell, to effectively put him in the situation as shown below.  Ford (white 10) is drifting across the pitch with the ball in hand, with Anthony Watson (white 15, although technically he should be 14) out wide and Joseph (white 13) lurking menacingly behind the fly half.

The red lines indicate running direction, whilst the yellow lines indicate line of sights.  You can see Masi (blue 12) and Morisi (blue 13) both drifting across, and both keeping an eye on Ford to see what he's going to do.  If Ford was to hit Watson now, Morisi simply drifts across and hits his man and, in a similar fashion, if he was to bring Joseph 'round the corner' at this point, Masi has time to drift and cream the runner as well, or Morisi can step in.  No deception, no danger.

It's the next 1 second where Ford creates the space though.  He throws a dummy out to Watson, sending Morisi stepping across, thinking that the ball will be on the Bath flyer in a flash and, crucially, focuses his line of sight on the full back.  A gap starts to appear.

Of course, if Ford was to hit Joseph now, Masi would still clatter the centre.  So Ford straightens his line, fixes Masi, and puts Joseph scorching through the gap for his second score.

In just one second, in almost one motion, Ford created space where there was none - and it's that sort of wizardry England will need this afternoon.


PS.  A rare first phase score is always a treat.  As the bloke from the A-Team says, "I love it when a plan comes together".



The Breakdown - The Sneaky Scrum-half Snipe

Well, the dust has settled on another eventful weekend in the Six Nations and we can reflect on a round that showcased Irish power, Scottish mud and French whatever-you-call-it in abundance.  Of course, it wasn’t just the Scottish mud that led to the 20 point humbling at the hands of the English, but rather a very promising display from the visitors’ forwards and the back 3 in particular, and that’s reflected in my Six Nations Team of the Week, which can be found on The Rugby Blog.

However, one particular moment which caught my eye at the weekend was Luther Burrell’s try against Scotland, which went to demonstrate why I think – in the modern game – it is essential to have a scrum half who can provide a running threat.  And Danny Care, despite having limitations in other parts of his game (which, to be fair, he has evidently worked on), is one of the best of this breed.

Take the classic situation below.  England were mauling Scotland’s pack backwards before it stalled 5 metres out.  Care (white 9) had his backline outside him, with the Scots marking man for man and all looking fairly comfortable.  Dave Denton (blue 8), the powerful back rower, was the only guard by the side of the maul, watching for the scrum half snipe.  All in all, a pretty solid set up by the defence, right?

 

 

Wrong.  Where Care is so good – and Ben Youngs, too, when on his game – is with the darting lateral runs he makes to create uncertainty amongst defenders.  Some people say that it eats up space for those outside the 9, but as long as you have a runner charging from out to in, into the holes created, it can be absolutely lethal.  In this pre-planned move, Care will dart across into Duncan Weir’s (blue 10) channel, with big Luther Burrell (white 13) hitting a short line on Weir’s outside shoulder.  Owen Farrell (white 10) and Billy Twelvetrees (white 12) will be drifting wider to make the defence wonder if Burrell is just a decoy.

For the defence, this is a nightmare.  Denton is no slouch, but Care is undoubtedly quicker, and this causes Weir to question whether or not he should continue to drift wide to mark Farrell, as he’s worried that Care will slip through the gap between him Denton. So, he makes the decision to step in – or at least hesitate with his drift – and this opens up a huge gap.  Matt Scott (blue 12), doing the right thing, is keeping an eye on Farrell and Twelvetrees as they drift wide, and isn’t close enough to get drawn in by Care’s run.

 

 

The end result is Burrell as a Dawn French sized space to aim for between Weir and Scott, and a well timed pass from Care is enough to get him through it with the ball. 

 

 

 

So how, as a defence, do you stop that from happening?  You can't just carry on with your drift and ignore the 9's run, as they might sneak through themselves.  Well, the answer is simple.  If you don't have a seriously quick flanker who can handle the pace, you'll need to place two guards by the ruck, clogging up the channel which the speedy 9 wants to attack.  Of course, this may leave you short of numbers at the breakdown, but when you’re facing a rapid 9 like Care, you have to take the necessary precautions.

The Breakdown - To Step in or Not to Step in...That is the Question

Right, it’s been ages since I’ve done one of these, but that fantastic, gut-wrenching French try at the end of Le Crunch got me picking my brains at how England could have shut the move down.  I used to have an Irish rugby coach whose views on rugby bordered somewhere between madness and ground-breaking, but one of his favourite sayings was “If you haven’t got the ball, you’ve got f*ck all”.  Except he didn’t just say it, he’d scream it in your face.  I think his point was, unless somebody is committed to the ball carrier in defence, there’s no point in marking the outside support runner.  It all comes down to knowing when to drift, and mark the runners, and when to step in and hit the man.  And, unfortunately for England, we saw two examples in the same move of the men in white getting it wrong as Gael Fickou glided over for a superb score.

 

It started as hooker Dimitri Szarzewski (number 16, below), found himself in space with Fickou (23) and Medard (11) outside him.  Chasing him down from the inside was a knackered-looking Joe Launchbury (4) and a relatively fresh Brad Barritt (22).  On his outside defence, was the makeshift winger Luther Burrell, forced into this position following the withdrawal of Jack Nowell.  Szarzewski did brilliantly – creating enough doubt in Burrell’s mind as to whether he would be caught to force the Englishman to step in.  The French hooker timed his pass to Fickou well, and suddenly Launchbury and Barritt, instead of chasing down a hooker in a central channel, were trying to get across to the touchline to cover the 2 quickest men on the pitch.  They were never going to make it.

Yellow line - non-ball carrying movement.  Red line - ball-carrying movement.  Dotted Red Line - Pass.

Burrell had made the decision to step in.  In this case, it was the wrong call, although the communication from the inside defence must take some of the blame too.  Realising that it was just a hooker with the ball, the call should have been for Burrell to stay outside and mark the quick men – Szarzewski, even if it meant that he made more yardage than if Burrell stepped in, would eventually be caught by Barritt or Launchbury or, if they couldn’t get there, by Alex Goode, the last line of defence.  As good a hooker as Szarzewski is, he wouldn’t have the speed to score himself or the hands to release the heavily marked outside men as the cover defence eventually boxed him in.  With England 5 points clear, they could afford for the hooker to make more yards as long as he was eventually brought down – from that situation, they could cynically kill the ball and ensure that the try scoring opportunity was lost, even if it cost them a yellow card.

Allowing Szarzewski to carry on running lets the cover defence deal with him and Burrell block the pass to the wingers

 

After Fickou went clear, however, it was always likely to be a try.  But here Alex Goode (23) was the last defender covering across, and he had a choice again – hit the man, or drift to the support.  It’s a horrible situation to be in, to be fair, but Goode opted to guess that Fickou would pass to his support, and so bought the dummy and headed straight across to Medard, giving Fickou an easy run in under the posts.

Goode passes straight across Fickou to try and hit Medard

It was pretty similar in many ways to the situation that Burrell had just seconds later, but this time the right decision was to hit the man and not, as Goode did, drift wide to the support runners.  As the last line of defence, there is no drift covering your inside – after you, there is only the try line.  So, as a full back in this situation, your job has to be to make scoring a try as difficult as possible or, at the very least, force the try to be scored out wide so that a tricky conversion ensues.  The only way to do that is to hit the ball carrier with everything you have, and Goode should have absolutely creamed Fickou here.  The worst that could have happened is that he passed to Medard who would score slightly further out as the tired legs came across to cut off his route to the posts, whilst Fickou may have tried the dummy and been stopped dead or, even better, thrown a hurried pass to Medard and forcing a turnover.

 

The worst case scenario if Goode hits Fickou - Medard scores out wide due to the cover eventually getting across

Still, coulda shoulda woulda.  It doesn’t detract from a great score from Fickou, but if England want to mix it with the best, they need to ensure that their communication on the drift defence is clear – no matter who is in what position at the time. 

Breakdown - Silky Scots and Sneaky Sean Slice open Italy

Scotland have surprised people this championship – their critics, their fans and probably even themselves.  They’ve played with a good amount of inventiveness and ambition when they’ve had the chance, and nothing summed this up more than Matt Scott’s try against Italy at the weekend.  It was a perfectly executed first phase move, so let’s see what forces were at work in releasing Scott into space for arguably their best-worked try of the season so far.

 

Scotland lined up behind a lineout with outside centre Sean Lamont (white 13) almost directly in front of inside centre Matt Scott (white 12).  By the time fly half Ruaridh Jackson (white 10) gets the ball, right wing Sean Maitland (white 14) has also appeared behind Jackson on his left hand shoulder.  The Italians have rightly spotted the move as a simple ‘slice’ (with 13 cutting in and 12 drifting out).  They have lined up with Andrea Masi (blue 15) marking Jackson and ready to hit Lamont on the cut back, Gonzalo Canale (blue 12) is ready to drift right and hit Maitland, whilst Tommaso Benvenuti (blue 13) is wider, waiting to cut down Scott should he receive the ball.

 

As the move triggers, Lamont angles his run directly into Canale, who would be wanting to push forward and across to hit Maitland.  As it turns out, his route is blocked and when Maitland does receive the ball, it means that Benvenuti, instead of just having to simply mark Scott, is now faced with a 2 on 1, with no cover from Canale.

 

Benvenuti unfortunately does the worst thing possible and dithers.  He stays stranded, hitting neither Scott nor Maitland, meaning that when Maitland makes his half break (before being caught by the cover) he can offload to Scott who has been allowed a free run on his shoulder.  Scott, the try scorer, and Maitland, the offloader, got the credit for this, but the real work was done by Sean Lamont in blocking Canale’s drift.  Very sneaky, very effective.

Breakdown - O'Driscoll Brilliance v Wales

Simon Zebo ran in his first 6 Nations try for Ireland on Saturday, opening his country’s account for the tournament in the process.  Whilst he was the finisher, the old magician O’Driscoll was the architect, drawing in 3 defenders to create the space for Zebo to jog in unopposed – every winger’s favourite kind of try.  We’ll be taking a look at why what BOD did was so good, and how it made Zebo’s finish probably the simplest one he’ll have all season.

 

O’Driscoll (green 13) receives the ball wide on the left, just inside the 22metre line, with only Zebo (green 11) outside for support.  Directly opposite him is Jonathan Davies (red 13), whilst Alex Cuthbert (red 14) is marking Zebo and Leigh Halfpenny (red 15) is covering fullback.  O’Driscoll receives the ball flat on an outside break and hits the accelerators.  He runs laterally, just getting on Davies’ outside shoulder.  Because Cuthbert doesn’t know if Davies will reach O’Driscoll or not, he will decide to step in, whilst Halfpenny, who is covering across, will also take out O’Driscoll in the belief that Davies won’t catch him.  Zebo meanwhile, spots what O’Driscoll is trying to do and instead of switching, as most wingers would do on a lateral run near a touchline from a centre, he hogs the left touchline.

 

With Davies just reaching O’Driscoll and Halfpenny covering in any case, Cuthbert has made a mistake by stepping in, leaving Zebo unmarked.  He should have left the inside man to his inside cover (and/or full back) and concentrated on his job (marking Zebo) unless he was absolutely sure O’Driscoll would otherwise have a free run to the line.  As it is, O’Driscoll is able to flip a perfect pass out behind the in-stepping Cuthbert to the onrushing Zebo, who has held his line brilliantly.

Let’s watch the master at work once more.