LIONS THREATS AND HOW TO COUNTER – LOCKS AND LINEOUT

How Will The Wallabies Deal With This Threat?

I expect the Wallabies will start with James Horwill and Sitaleki Timani as locks on the basis that Robbie Deans will want to throw the biggest bodies he can at the Lions to try and play a power game.

Horwill is an obvious choice and Timani is a favourite of Deans but I can’t see how his selection is justified. He started in nine tests in 2012 and performed well in the second test against the All Blacks but was no better than average in the remaining matches. For a player with such a massive frame he doesn’t have the impact you’d expect – far too often he can be found standing out wide or walking around the field rather than doing the heavy lifting in tight that is required from a lock. This season in Super Rugby we’ve seen how high he’s been running when carrying the ball and if he continues with that poor technique the Lions will use the Irish ‘choke’ tackle tactic on him which could result in turnovers against the Wallabies. He is also not a good lineout jumping option.

It’s understandable Deans wants a big tighthead lock to help combat the Lions at scrum time and to bend the line when carrying the ball but I think Kane Douglas would have been the better choice for those roles. I expect Douglas will be selected in the final squad but his exclusion from the initial squad indicates that Deans prefers Timani in the tighthead lock position.

Covering For Timani

If Timani starts in combination with the backrow I’m expecting to see selected, the Wallabies will only have two front line jumpers (Horwill and one of the backrowers) with three backup jumpers, one of which will be Timani. Whilst the Wallabies will have five jumpers the Lions will have five front line jumpers against two which will give the Lions a significant advantage.

To try and counter that advantage I expect the Wallabies will primarily use short, five man lineouts on attack with Timani being used to run the ball in mid-field, together with one of the backrowers, rather than jumping in the lineout – basically the 2012 plan.

Using five man lineouts will limit the number of front line jumpers the Lions can deploy in defence to three which will help the Wallabies a little. However using short lineouts limits the attacking options available on first phase plays as the opposition will have extra forwards in the backline, limiting the space available to attack. I doubt Deans will be planning on many wide first phase plays anyway, even if a full lineout was used, so this lineout strategy suits the overall game plan.

The biggest difficulty for the Wallabies at lineout time will come when they want to use a full lineout within the Lions 22 with a view to driving the ball. With so many front line jumping options available to the Lions I won’t be surprised to see them attack the Wallabies lineout really hard, even when close to their own line, in an attempt to cut the Wallabies ball off at source.

In attack the Lions will have so many jumping options that the Wallabies are going to have a hard time shutting them down. In 2012, despite Nathan Sharpe being on deck, the Wallabies defensive lineout was not as effective as required in putting pressure on the opposition and far too often they didn’t even get jumpers up to compete. If that trend continues the Wallabies will be handing the Lions easy possession.

A Lock Short

Another problem for the Wallabies is who to select on the bench to cover lock. With Rob Simmons selected in the initial squad as the only other specialist lock the indication is that Deans may choose to have a player on the bench who can cover both blindside flanker and lock. Within the initial squad there is only one player who can realistically fill that role – Dave Dennis.

It may be that Hugh McMeniman comes into the wider squad once he proves his fitness for the Force and he can cover both lock and blindside flanker positions as well. I think he’d be a preferable choice on the bench over Dennis, however his match fitness remain a question until we see how he returns from his injury.

I therefore expect Dennis will be on the bench for the first test and believe that the inclusion of only three locks in the initial squad provides a sign that this is likely. Having only three locks in the initial squad means the Wallabies can’t practice their live scrums as effectively as I think they should – but the more I think about it, the more I start to wonder if this isn’t a way to give Dennis the maximum amount of time to practice scrummaging as a lock whilst in camp, whereas if there had been a fourth lock in the initial squad his time in scrummaging practice as a lock would have been limited.

The Waratahs have the worst attacking lineout in Super Rugby in 2013 winning just under 79% of their own throws. There are two reasons for this – the Waratahs only have two front line jumpers – Dennis and Douglas plus two backup jumpers in Timani and Palu – as a result the opposition have a much better idea of where the throw will go against the Waratahs than other teams with more front line jumpers. The second issue is that Dennis has been making the mistake of calling into a contest and ignoring space that is available. As a result of these factors the Waratahs lineout has been compromised – much as the Wallabies lineout is going to be with the selections I expect Deans to make.

A Tough Call?

With so many threats in the Lions lineout, in both attack and defence, the Wallabies really need an experienced lineout caller on the field to organise the lineout, identify any opportunities that arise and change calls quickly and calmly in reaction to what the Lions are doing. With Horwill and Timani as the locks that caller may have to be one of the backrowers – Horwill will have too many other things to think about as captain and Timani won’t even be in the majority of lineouts. Dennis will be on the bench and given how he’s struggled with the Waratahs he isn’t a good option anyway.

As a result Deans will back himself into a corner if he does start with Timani. Neither of the openside flanker candidates, Liam Gill or Michael Hooper, are lineout callers so either the blindside flanker or the number eight will have to be selected primarily based on lineout calling capability. Selecting players in other positions to cover for the deficiency caused by not selecting a lock who can call the lineouts compromises the balance of the team.

These compromises could be overcome by the selection of Simmons to start alongside Horwill as Nathan Sharpe suggested recently but I don’t think that will happen. Simmons, Douglas and McMeniman may come into contention for the second and third tests.

The other possibility to solve the lineout calling issue would be to replace Horwill as captain with Will Genia so that Horwill could focus on calling the lineout – I wonder whether the announcement of the captain was delayed so Deans could break that news to Horwill face to face? Don’t be surprised if Deans goes with this compromise to get himself out of the bind his selection preferences will create.

I’ll discuss the backrow options and their lineout capability in part three of this series on Monday together with the halves pairing.