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.