Author: Brian Smith
Brian Smith
Brian Smith is a rare breed who has both played and coached international rugby and doesn't mind telling it as he sees it. He's currently putting his Oxford degree to good use teaching Commerce and coaching rugby at the Scots College, Sydney.
When the Wallabies pick Reece Hodge at fly half, and four Fijian-born players in the outside backs, you know the Wallabies are trying something different. Usually Michael Cheika’s teams play with more compact ball players at 10 and 12 in order to manage the attack. Against the Japanese, it’s fair to say the experiment worked. In fact the Japanese would say it was ‘subarashii’ (excellent). It was a pretty clever move to put so much firepower on the pitch against one of the smallest international teams in orld rugby. The Brave Blossoms were brave, but they also got battered. In this…
Spending the last week with the Barbarians was a lot of fun and hopefully the way we played was entertaining. After all, that’s what Barbarians rugby is all about. In a world of high performance and win at all costs rugby I know the players enjoyed having the freedom to express themselves and have some fun on the pitch. Our training was old school, and even in the warm up before the match we played touch football to ensure the players remembered the mantra for the week – ‘keep the ball alive’. In this edition we’re going to have a…
There was much to like about the Wallabies attack against the Pumas in Mendoza, and the coaching staff can take credit for the way they have evolved their strike plays and general attack shape over the course of the Championship. In this edition we are going to look closely at 3 targeted plays from the last 20 minutes of the test match. It’s always difficult to dive deep into your playbook in the final quarter of the game because accuracy can be an issue. Some of the starting players have been replaced and fatigue becomes a factor for the players…
Sitting up until the wee hours of the morning on Sunday was well worth it. The Wallabies certainly turned up in Bloemfontein and the Springboks threw everything they had at Australia, in what turned out to be an enthralling test match. Neither side were playing for a 27 v 27 draw, but that’s how it ended up. There has been nothing between these teams in both their 2017 test matches so it’s probably fitting that both camps again shared the spoils. Both coaches would have to be happy with the urgency shown by their teams in this contest. In this article,…
A couple of weeks ago, a coach asked me how to coach support play. To be honest, I didn’t really have a firm answer at the time. Since then I’ve been thinking about the subject and forming some coherent thoughts so I could give this coach some pearls of advice. Then, on Saturday, I watched the All Blacks hammer South Africa and the Wallabies run up a score against Argentina and it occurred to me – Why don’t I show him what good support play looks lik,e and let him work out how best to coach it to his players?…
The Lunacy of Optimism At some time, all coaches are faced with the task of getting their troops up after a nightmare performance. this was the task Michael Cheika faced last week, as he prepared the Wallabies for Bledisloe 2 in Dunedin. Logic says that after shipping 54 points in Sydney, the Wallabies’ chance of winning in New Zealand to keep the series alive, was pretty slim. But coaches don’t always deal in logic and in this case Coach Cheika clearly planted a seed in the minds of his Wallabies in Dunedin – that seed was the “lunacy of optimism”.…
The Set Up As a Wallabies supporter, it’s hard to stomach the result and it’s natural to start grasping at straws to explain what happened. It’s still a bit raw for me, so I’m going to focus on one part of the game where Australia had some sort of parity with the All Blacks. Both teams were well prepared in this area of the game and we’ll take a look at a couple of successful Red Zone plays from both teams. If nothing else, the match last night might provide a couple of new attacking ideas for coaches and players…
Jonny’s Boy Owen Farrell’s trusted right foot is one of the main reasons Warren Gatland’s Lions have been a success on this New Zealand Tour. And behind the nerves of steel? The trusty technique inspired by the great Jonny Wilkinson. To be fair, Owen Farrell has excellent pedigree as his father Andy was a rugby league legend for Wigan and Great Britain. Andy was a goal kicking back rower in the Super League and made the switch to rugby for the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Injury forced him into early retirement and we did not see the best of him…
That Red Card What a game it was in Wellington last night. Much will be made of the red-carding of Sonny Bill Williams in the 24th minute and the outcome of the match but I don’t subscribe to that theory. I thought the All Black coaches managed the situation very well. Their call to play with seven forwards was smart particularly as they knew the Lions would be probing in the backs all night. No doubt they’d have looked at these sort of contingencies as part of their meticulous planning. Credit must go to the Lions for selecting a team…
It might have been ugly but a win is a win and the record books will show the Wallabies won comfortably 40 v 27. However, the scoreboard did not tell the full story as the Italians made life very uncomfortable for Michael Cheika’s team when Rory Arnold threw a loose pass in the 67th minute to gift the Italians a try. At that point it was 28 v 27 and things were getting a bit funky but as you’d expect the Wallabies rallied scoring two late tries to see off the brave Italians. So to quote Shakespeare…”all’s well that ends…
Plucky or Lucky The Wallabies will be bitterly disappointed with the result against Scotland but for mine they were the better attacking team and the plucky Scots’ coach (Gregor Townsend) will understand his brave team was kissed by a pixie on Saturday evening. Scotland did score 3 tries but the first two were the result of gifts in the form of a loose pass and a charge down respectively. Will Genia might even be credited with try assists for these touch downs. However, Scotland’s 3rd try was well taken so lets take a look at them in sequence. …
Wallabies Coach Michael Cheika will be happy with Australia’s first hit out of the Test Match season. The Wallabies scored 5 well-executed tries and their Attack Coach Steve Larkham will be delighted with the execution of their strike plays. Let’s take a look at the ties in sequential order. 1. Kick to Score The Wallabies have a very good driving game but every team needs a Plan B if the drive gets sacked, or if the referee calls for the attack to use it or lose it. The Bernard Foley cross kick from left to right for Israel Folau was…
England’s Grand Slam decider was always going to be a dog fight in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day. The Irish seem to grow an arm and a leg when they play England in these big matches. It might have something to do with 800 years of history or it might just be that this English team’s knack of winning tight games eluded them on Saturday. Either way, it was an enthralling contest even if it was a dour spectacle on a soft pitch. Ireland Came to Play It was refreshing to see Joe Schmidt’s Irish team turn up for this…
In the modern era it’s rare that a test match is decided by the dancing feet of a centre, but that is exactly how England won the 2017 RBS 6 Nations. Jonathan Joseph has always had beautiful footwork, that was obvious when he was first contracted to the London Irish Academy (my old club). In this match he produced what must be one of the most perfect running performances an outside centre has ever made. He tore up the park from the first minute until the 60th minute when coach Eddie Jones gave him a rest. The following clips are…
Italy’s Improvisation England played Italy on Sunday at Twickenham and if you’d only seen the score you’d have thought it was business as usual with England winning 36 v 15. However, if you know Italy’s coaching team (Conor O’Shea, Mike Catt and Brendan Venter), you’d know they were not going to come to Twickenham without a plan -particularly as their Italian team had shipped 60 points at home against Ireland a week earlier. For those of you who missed the game these clips will give you a quick look at the tactics employed by Italy as they fought to regain…
This Eddie Jones coached England team keep finding a way to win. This time it was the very experienced Wales team that lost at the death to this seemingly blessed England team, making it two wins out of two for England in the Six Nations. Jones keeps talking about being the best team in the world, and his team keeps finding ways to win. Win ugly, win late…it doesn’t matter how they do it this team just keeps winning and it’s the sign of a very good program. In this analysis we’re going to look at a few things in attack…
History England were rusty and lucky to beat an enthusiastic and super sized France in Twickenham in Round 1 of the 2017 RNS 6 Nations. The monster French team created 10 line breaks to England’s 5 and their talismanic number eight, Louis Picamoles, was announced man of the match. A rare occurrence for the award to go to a player on the losing team playing away. However, despite losing heavily almost every statistic and KPI, the Eddie Jones coached England team took their chance late in the second half with Ben Teo scoring to deny France. This England team is…
A game of two halves is a good way to describe the Wallabies’ final test match of the season. Despite the final score, and the unpleasant win record for the 2016 season, there remains a number of positives that the Wallabies can build on going forward. Today’s analysis is going to focus primarily on Australia’s attack strategy – but we’ll also take a quick look at England. Target Ford The Wallabies were always going to target George Ford for the exact same reason as the NSW State of Origin team targets Jonathan Thurston. In the early stages of the test…
Having played in both Gold and Green jumpers it’s always an experience watching the Wallabies play Ireland. Whilst I thought the Australia had that game won with 15 minutes to go it’s difficult not to appreciate the way Ireland dug deep and found a way to win despite the injury carnage they faced in their backline. In this week’s analysis we’re going to focus on the attack of both teams. Spread Plays Both teams started the game launching ‘Spread’ plays from scrums and lineouts. It was a signal of intent from both teams. The first clip we’ll look at is…
Yesterday I looked at what the Wallabies did well in their win over France in Paris on the weekend. In today’s analysis we’ll examine some of the fix ups the boys will be working on ahead of this weekend’s test versus Ireland. Fix Up 1 – Edge Defence The Wallabies certainly had their hands full defending the French fullback (Scott Spedding) and the Fijian born wingers (Virimi Vakatawa and Noa Nakaitaci). To begin with, we’ll have a look at the times we defended the edge really well. In both these clips we “jockeyed” well when we were numbers down to…