Leinster spanked Connacht 33-7 in the penultimate round of the URC and pick of the scores was this O’Brien finish after great work from Foley, Frawley and Pendergast.
It’s always enjoyable seeing a good quality strike move come off.
However, whilst a clean kill is always satisfying the notable thing here is the excellence of the execution and how, when one player makes a mistake Leinster are able to adapt and maintain their chance of scoring:
Leinster throw to Conan at 2, this forces Connacht to move towards the touchline to defend the catch and drive, opening up the seam and thinning the chasing defence.
This means both Foley and Frawley become running threats:
So as Foley comes around all eyes have to stay on him, meaning the tail defence is slow to leak out and leaves Mallon isolated and Frawley is able to target both Mallon and Forde:
Key here now is the quality of Foley’s pass, fast and wide it removes 9 defenders from the equation and importantly Frawley is able to maintain his line, running straight.
We get a better view of this from the front:
Because he doesn’t have to move in to meet the ball he can stay square, keeping him a running and passing threat.
The proximity of Frawley and Osborne means the defence has to sit down:
The ability to maintain his straight line makes the pass to Pendergast a simple across the body move.
Meaning the next defender out has to jam in on Pendergast.
It opens up the line for Russell but because he’s overshot we see the importance of multiple options, as Pendergast can bail out of the pass and look to the outside.
Nice step to get on the outside of the next defender and a simple pass to O’Brien into the gap puts him home.
Simple yet well executed strike move from Leinster showing the importance of clean execution and being aware of all your options.
Author: The Dead Ball Area
Graeme Forbes has run The Dead Ball Area since 2014. You can find his material on Green and Gold Rugby, Rugbydump Coaching and Youtube. You can also find him randomly arguing with people on Twitter.
