On the short side a team usually ends up with the front five who have just scrummaged, or tried to lift a pod in the defensive line-out. If you have much sense as a defensive unit your back row will then fold round from the set-piece to the openside and allow the backs to press on the team, expecting them to keep attacking the same way. Visualise the first ruck being 20-25 metres from the touchline (I prefer those short sides even smaller – give me 15 yards and I will show you an opportunity). Many short sides are created by hitting a centre up the fly-half channel from a line-out or getting a No 8 into that same channel from a scrum. The personnel on the short side often tend to be the larger brethren of the front five. This leaves the blindside wing just a little unsure whether they are up in the line as part of the defence or just sitting off and covering the space in expectation of a kick in behind. The full-back, if operating a pendulum system with the two wingers, tends to favour the openside, allowing the openside wing to press as they are all instructed to do. They know that the touchline, their trusty old friend, never misses a tackle, so often line up inside their opposite player with a view to pushing them wide. Teams want to have more numbers on the openside. But why? Defences are less aggressive on short sides Call them what you will - short sides, blind sides, edges, 15-metre channels – this is where you can make real inroads. Faced with this aggressive defence and with quick ball, the best chance you have of breaking down a team’s organisation is by heading up the short side. Which brings me to my point about blindsides and dark, side-alleys. Even so, the defensive organisation is so good that when the ball is in the wide channels and on the flanks, players are proving to be insanely fast at shutting down the outside channels and breaks, even when they are outnumbered. To mitigate this, referees have been super harsh on the offside line. The downside is that there are huge numbers of players on their feet and in defensive lines. The upside is fast ball and a precisely-refereed breakdown. The benefit of the doubt is to the attacking team and as such we are seeing a drop in the number of players committing to breakdowns, on both sides. One of the trade-offs to all this quick ball is that defences have smartened up their act at the breakdown and understand that they must be patient for the jackal or turnover attempt. Again, the net effect is that ball-in-play time is up. Referees do not want pile-ups and are quick to call “tackle” if a ball-carrier's knee gets within the same postcode as the ground, forcing tacklers to release and allowing the ball to be recycled quickly. The pace of the game has increased, as has the time the ball has spent in play. After a round of adjustment, the net result was a breakdown you could only dream of pre-lockdown. Any player arriving at the ruck off their feet, coming in from the side or anywhere near an offside line, was pinged off the park early on in New Zealand and this set the tone. Referees are also set to play a key role, not least in how they have been applying the long-standing ruck laws in the Southern Hemisphere. Everyone is fumbling their way through protocols and doing their best but time was against all the coaches in terms of perfect scenarios.
#Rugby 08 help professional#
March was a long time ago, bodies have had plenty of time with no contact, training has been very different and weight will have been an issue - maintaining it for some in terms of muscle mass keeping it off for others in terms of body fat.Ĭontact training, while limited in modern professional rugby, will have been negligible. The English teams will not hit the ground running, either. Even so, it is fair to say that when Super Rugby Australia kicked off a few weeks later it felt like we were watching some pub teams compared to the quality from across the Tasman. It has been tough to compare and contrast the Kiwis as there was nothing else happening. We have seen lung-busting passages of play but it is going to take time for match fitness in our leagues to catch up with the early rounds of Super Rugby Aotearoa. Based on the games we’ve seen so far in this Covid-impacted season, dark side-alleys and tight blindsides are back in vogue across the rugby world.
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