Wind the clock back, all the way to 1963: it was the year of ‘the big freeze’ in the UK, and hardly any club rugby had been played since Christmas. When the second round of the [then] Five Nations spun around in the middle of February, only the underground heating system at Murrayfield enabled the match between Scotland and Wales to go ahead.
On a bleak and foggy afternoon, Welsh scrum-half Clive Rowlands decided on a kicking strategy, fortified by the knowledge he could kick straight into touch from any part of the field. There were a world record 111 lineouts in the game, 44 of which morphed into dank, humourless mauls. Schoolboys on the side of the pitch away from the main action were so bored by proceedings they began pelting the touch judge with snowballs.
It was one of the bitterest winter days in living memory, and not just because of the weather. The hands of mercurial Welsh number 10 Dai Watkins turned blue. He only touched the ball five times in 80 minutes: “once to collect the Scottish kick-off, twice to pick up their grub-kicks ahead, and twice only to catch passes from my scrum half”. The little Newport magician was lucky not get frostbite.
Dennis Busher of The Daily Herald claimed after the icy sleet had settled ‘international rugby is in its death throes as a spectator sport’. Wales won 6-0 but a crisis of confidence in the northern hemisphere game was now the central topic of conversation. As Daily Express correspondent Pat Marshall concluded:
“This was power-rugby, brutally bludgeoned up and down the touchlines by two brutish packs, with kicking scrum-halves yapping at their heels. It has no part in the pattern of British rugby, where quickness of wit and fleetness of foot still counts for more than brawn supported by an educated boot. Rowlands won a tactical victory, but it was no victory for rugby.”
The far-reaching tremors caused rugby governance to fully adopt ‘the Australian dispensation’ and ban direct kicks to touch from outside the 22 five years later, in 1968. Suddenly teams had to think of other ways to move the ball up and down the field – and so, overlap rugby was born. It is the way rugby has often evolved, in impulsive fits and starts triggered by spectator trauma.
By 1971, the light had dawned on a new era and Wales were routinely bringing their outstanding full-back JPR Williams into the attacking line and scoring overlap tries for fun – even against the same opponents, even at the same venue as that landmark match in 1963.
That is the warm glow of rugby nostalgia embodied in two short, seminal clips of action. If the defending wing stays out with his man, the full-back [Williams] can step back and pick up his back-row support coming from the inside; if he chooses to come in to take JPR man-and-ball, the full-back can pass to Gerald Davies for the wing to trace a beautiful arc to the corner. It was all so simple back then.
Roll the clock forward to the present day, and overlaps are a lot harder to find against the very best defences in the world – and by ‘best’, I mean the South African pattern of defence employed by Jacques Nienaber for the Springboks, and now firmly installed at Irish province Leinster. The space afforded on the edges of the field is a venus flytrap containing only the promise of honey for those unwise enough to enter the snapping green, or mid-blue jaws.
It is perhaps the ultimate irony it is the capital province of Ireland which has been transformed in the space of a couple of seasons, from the team best able to use the full width of the field and create breaks on attack, to the side most expert at preventing them.
If the rugby gods have yet to pronounce final judgement upon whether the new South African immoveable object is an improvement on the previous irresistible Irish force, Leinster have certainly planted a flag in the ground against their old bête noir La Rochelle. Leinster have won their past three encounters in the Investec Champions Cup and two of those victories have come away from home. The spell has been broken.
The main reason for that success is the quality of the Leinster defence, which has only conceded two tries over three games played. One early defensive ‘chord’ set the tone for the entire match.
In previous generations you might have seen Leinster wing Jimmy O’Brien back off and drift towards the last attacker. Not so now. O’Brien hurtles up on the outside shoulder of the passer inside him [La Rochelle full-back Brice Dulin] and forces a dead duck of a delivery under pressure. The remainder of the Leinster defence simply slides across behind the rush to establish a new defensive rampart ten metres ahead of the previous ruck.
The fabled coach of the 1971 Lions, Carwyn James, had a training routine in which a chain of passers would be required to beat a man running at full tilt to the opposite touchline. ‘The pass always beats the man’ was his credo, but in modern praxis that is all too often no longer true. ‘The man’ and his mates recover much too vigorously for the pass to hit its mark.
This represents the very best type of scenario for La Rochelle to shift the ball wide: a lineout turnover where the visitors are caught in an attacking/kicking formation, and the entire width of the field in which to exploit it. Moreover, in this instance the blitzer [Leinster left wing Jamie Osborne] is successfully bypassed and there is a clear three-to-one overlap in the right 15m zone of the field.
Leinster are saved by the excellence of their second-tier defence, featuring two back-rowers [Caelan Doris, and Josh van der Flier in the red hat] and recovering full-back Jordie Barrett. That trio not only stop Rochelais wing Jack Nowell in his tracks, they strip him of the ball for good measure. It is no longer enough for the ball to beat the man, now it has to pull two rabbits out of the same hat and beat a double layer of D.
The crux of the game was reached as early as the 14th minute. The home side spent over four and half minutes of active time within 10m of the Leinster goal-line without remotely threatening to score. They tried moves from scrum.
Look where Leinster left wing Osborne is defending before he breaks up the play – 10m inside the near post, three men in on La Rochelle 10 Antoine Hastoy!
The fortunes of Les Maritimes did not improve from lineout.
Whenever the ball went to width, it was the Irishmen who became the aggressors and assumed the initiative on defence. The pressure on the last pass in defence more than compensated for the extra man in attack throughout the game
If Ireland, under the watchful auspices of interim head coach Simon Easterby, decide to push their chips ‘all-in’ on the Nienaber pattern of defence, it will present their closest Six Nations challengers France with a whole new set of problems.
La Rochelle could not unlock the Leinster D with either the power of the 7-1 bench, or the six internationals starting in their backline. Will Les Bleus do any better in Dublin on 8th March, even with the likely cavalry from Stade Toulousain and Union Bordeaux-Bègles reinforcing their ranks? Can the power of the Top 14 overwhelm the smarts of the URC, with a little South African frisson to boot?
The larger question of how the nuance of the pass in attack can establish its credentials against a proper Springbok-style, Nienaber-mentored defence at the highest level likewise remains unanswered. The pass does not beat the man too often in that contest. It is a conundrum which would test the problem-solving skills of even a coach as bright as Carwyn James to the absolute limit.
