Under Wayne Pivac the Welsh lineout has been quite the roller coaster ride. In the 2020 Six Nations Wales had perhaps the worst lineout. Using Simon Gleave’s Lineout Effectiveness Metrics they sat bottom, however by the end of the 2021 competition they had risen to the top. This piece won’t focus on how they fixed …
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Wayne’s Wales: Defence
Under Wayne Pivac, Wales had a rocky start defensively, conceding over 90 points across for the first time since 2015 in the 2020 Six Nations. The defence wasn’t any better when Wales played in the autumn, when they conceded the 3rd most points of any team. There were still some problems with the defence under …
Wayne’s Wales: Kicking
Wales under Wayne Pivac have developed into an innovative and forward thinking side. They have melded various strategies and tactics into a high skill, attack minded gameplan. The development however has not just been on the attack, with innovation also present in their kicking strategy, whether it being double footed scrum halves, 2 man chase …
Wayne’s Wales: Attack
Under Wayne Pivac, Wales have developed one of the strongest attacks in the Northern Hemisphere. In the 2021 Six Nations Wales scored the most points on their way to the title. One of the main drivers of this success has been the innovations by Pivac and Stephen Jones especially around the “no numbers on back” …
How the Arrows flew: MLR 2020
The Toronto Arrows have been a revelation in Major League Rugby since joining the league last year (MLR’s second). In their inaugural year, the Arrows reached the semi-final stage. The winter weather in the Toronto area meant that for the beginning of the 2020 season the Arrows played all their games away from home – …
Combining Structure and Flair: Joe Simmonds brace v Harlequins
While lockdown continues the rugby void still needs to be filled. So I have looked back instead at a game in the English Premiership, in order to see what learnings can be taken for when rugby takes. In the following piece, I examine how Exeter converted two opportunities through fly half Joe Simmonds to expose …
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Collective Intelligence: How Wales built a multi-phase defence
Defence has become an increasingly important facet of the game. So while my last piece looked at scoring from lineout and the flair of attack. It is time to look back, to a wonderful example of grunt, guile and grit as Wales took on Ireland in 2015. The defence shows the importance of adaptability, ruck …
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Lineout Tries – Using rugby’s most plentiful platform
The lineout is rugby’s holy grail when it comes to attack. This is simply down to the various options teams can use on the attack. Teams have the option to pin various amounts of forwards in the lineout and numbers in their backlines to strike. As we are still in the rugby doldrums, I look …
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NOLA’s forwards exploit New England with wonderful finesse
NOLA and New England share an impressive match in MLR Round 5. Both sides scored some great tries, however NOLA managed to take back the lead with a particularly special effort. While it had more luck than the spectacular offloading of New England’s earlier score, this was a brilliant try working through the phases before …
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Rugby ATL transition perfectly to expose NOLA Gold
In Rugby ATL’s first game as an MLR side, admittedly pre season, they tasted victory against long-standing MLR team NOLA Gold. They played well to break down NOLA and especially well to hold on. For a first true outing, despite the slightly odd structure of 40-20-40 minute thirds, they were very composed and exploited NOLA …
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