It’s been a heck of a Summer for the average Rugby Fan.
The Olympics raised awareness of the abbreviated code delivering two of the best sevens tournaments in recent memory.
England, Ireland, France and Wales Men travelled South. Four exciting tours against the Rugby Championship Teams, all four tours delivered moments. The Rugby Championship has been one of the best since its expansion from the Tri-Nations. South Africa have, evolved, and by some margin. Argentina look on the rise playing some of the most exciting Rugby around, and Australia and New Zealand under new management may not be the dominant forces they once were but were still a match for England and Wales.
If you’re keeping an eye on the Women’s game (and you should), then England put both France and New Zealand (if not entirely convincingly) to bed, as Scotland did with Fiji and Wales in their warm up games for WXV1 and 2 respectively. WXV1 seeing Ireland join fresh off the back of pummelling Australia Women 36-10, both tournaments set to start the weekend of the 27th September.
French Rugby kicked off and the first two rounds were incredible. If you’re an England fan then seeing the likes of the Vunipola’s, Farrell, Lawes and May all strutting their stuff and testing themselves against some of the world best in Top 14 and ProD2 has been a joy to watch. As we head into a Lions Season it’s going to be fascinating to see if those players can make a claim despite not playing international Rugby.
Which brings us to the final two Northern Domestic competitions to get under way, URC and Premiership.
The Premiership is particularly interesting in my mind. With the departure of many names we would hope the balance of power is not as clear as it was and while the season is only 2 games old at the time of writing we’ve already seen two outstanding performances and some brilliant tries.
So we’re going to jump straight into those games and look at two brilliant scores, the first by Max Malins in Bristols win at Newcastle Falcons, the second is Ted Hills try for Bath vs Northampton Saints.
Lets start with the Bears game.
Bristol were dominant across the board, Possession, Territory, use of that possession, points per 22 Entry,
This try for Malins is a prefect example of how effective they were the try, born from these key principles:
- Strong Stable Set Piece
- Bristol had 8 scrums, and won 9, compared to Falcons 7 from 8.
- Playing on the front foot.
- Bristol averaged 3 meters on average per carry, compared to Falcons 1.5.
- Attacking space
- Britsol averaged 2.5m per pass compared to Falcons 1.25
The try happens at 76 Minutes, the game is all but over, but this is great try against tired defence.
I’m a big fan of attacking from Scrums, for the following reasons:
- if done properly they create a lot of space and plenty of attacking options.
- the forwards are compressed into a few meters, far more than in alineout where they are already on their feet and alot more reactive the scrum is one of the few areas of the game were 9 players from the opposition are actively engaged creating far more 1vs1 opportunities if utilised right.
- You’re close to the gain line.
- The principle of playing go forward rugby gets too often overlooked for the more flamboyant stuff and while the game of Rugby is based on evasion it’s far more easier to do that when moving forward than backwards.
If we go back a few seconds before the scrum we can see Janse Van Rensburg loading behind the scrum with Lane. The set up is nothing unusual. If the ball goes open they are both in a position to act as 2nd wave runners. This allows them to attack both short and open.
We can also see he is indicating to AJ MacGinty what’s on.
This opens up for two reasons, first look how stable Bristols scrum is, they aren’t manipulating the Falcons, but are applying just enough pressure to hold them in and not allow their loose forwards to break.
The second thing to observe is Davies positioning. He stays at the feet of the 8 and immediately darts around to the back of the scrum so he can defend left and right.
That lack of pressure allows Randall the opportunity to play with time at the base of the scrum.
With all the options at their disposal Bristol snap back down the short side and because of that lack of pressure Randall is able to pick and dart and be over the gain line before he’s remotely engaged by the opposition.
Both Davies and Lockwood have to focus on Randall allowing Janse Van Rensburg and Lane to simply draw and pass their way around Radwan.
45 meters later, lane is dragged down and as the ball is whipped away from the ruck we can see how the Falcons defence is scattered to the winds trying to get back and generate some width.
And Malins singalling the cross field kick is already on.
Another carry to pull more defenders in and the defence is focus on two things, the ruck and the speed it’s generating.
When MacGinty puts the ball to foot it’s is literally 2vs1 out wide, and all he has to do is get it somewhere in the vicinity of Malins and Ibitoye.
It’s a beautiful kick from McGinty, note the height is low and importantly the back spin to make it bounce back and up for the on coming runners and not kick on towards the touch line.
Malins tracks it and gathers it clean, but we can see even if Malins hadn’t Ibitoye would have.
Great try, fantastic execution and great use of a trial law that is still bedding in.
A result of one of the two things I think we’re going to see a lot more of this season. Counter attacking rugby (as a result of the Dupont law) and using the 9 as an attacking runner/playmaker.
Later this week we’ll look at another impact of the new laws.
Author: The Dead Ball Area
