Munster and Benetton are the two most effective defensive sides in the URC this season, with both conceding under 125 points in the URC this season. This miserly tally is built on consistency, with neither side conceding over 30 points in a single United Rugby Championship game this season. While these facts alone make them …
Continue reading “Ferocity versus Flow: Understanding Munster and Benetton’s Defence”
The Crusaders are the standard setter in Southern Hemisphere rugby having underlined this status with a 7th Super Rugby title in a row. Today we dive into the building blocks behind their triumph. First we look at how they use forwards in their attack before focussing on their ability to change the point of attack. …
Continue reading “Deconstructing Dominance: Analysing the Crusaders’ 7th Title Triumph”
In the final written piece of this deep dive into Leicester Tigers, we look at the strength of their kicking game. One of the key parts of any rugby side is their approach to the kicking game. As the modern game has developed controlling territory and “playing in the right areas of the pitch” has …
Welcome to the second part of this series breaking down Leicester Tigers. Today we take a look at the formidable Leicester Tigers defence. The defence built by the superb Kevin Sinfield were the only side to restrict their opponents to below 20 points per game. A superb achievement given some of the attacking talent in …
Continue reading “Chop, Jackal and Scramble: How Tigers Designed Their Title Winning Defence”
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 – …
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 …
Continue reading “Collective Intelligence: How Wales built a multi-phase defence”
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 …
Continue reading “Lineout Tries – Using rugby’s most plentiful platform”
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