Yep, it’s Tuesday again, which means its time for the world renowned Tuesday Top 5! This week we check out the good, bad and ugly from the weekend, grade our conference, stare at some stats, analyse some attack and provide some video “analysis” surrounding the watchability of the Aussie matches.
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Good – Once again there was only one Australian team that lost. Three out of four teams coming away with points for the second week in a row is a very good way to start the season.
Bad – The New Zealand teams are still looking good. The young Kiwi guys making their starts in Super Rugby, some of whom I have never heard of, are looking good. Unfortunately we have a long wait, until round 7 when the Rebels play the Hurricanes, before we see how well we match up.
Ugly – It’s hard to look past Friday night’s atrocity for this one. A match that left many Aussie rugby fans hoping that the display they were watching wasn’t indicative of Rugby in Australia at the moment. Once again, following on from a fast flowing and skill-filled NZ derby, we saw the Reds and Brumbies slog it out in one of the dullest games of rugby I’ve seen. Reds fans may be pleased with the result, but there wasn’t much else to be happy about. There were numerous suggestions on Twitter as to activities that would be more interesting than watching this match, my personal fave was reading a book about 19th century English industrial law.
Report Card
Brumbies E I can’t think of much positive to say about the Brumbies this week. They scored 2 tries but let themselves down in almost every other area. Their rolling maul crossed the line twice but couldn’t get the ball down, their scrum was a mess and their discipline was appalling. There was not much in attack and handling let them down once again.
Reds C- They won, but it was an ugly win. They out did the Brumbies in the set piece, and their discipline was much improved. They didn’t manage to cross the line, winning off the boot of Lance. Extra points for their solid line defence which held the Brumbies maul up over the line twice. Once again, their scrum proved to be a massive weapon.
Rebels B That’s two from two for the Rebels for the first time ever. They easily took care of the Sunwolves, making them pay for their 23 turnovers. Their backs ran rampant in attack and were barely challenged for their second half tries. They gave away 16 penalties and were very lucky not to have been carded earlier for repeated penalties in the red zone. They were again the best of the Aussie conference this week.
Sunwolves D There was nothing of the flair and attack that we saw from the Sunwolves last week. They were hit hard with injuries, losing 3 men within the first 20 or so minutes, but still managed to hang in until just after half time. 23 turnovers conceded really hurt them, it’s hard to win when you give the opposition that much ball.
Waratahs C It wasn’t a loss, but it wasn’t a win either and the Sharks gave them ample opportunity with their 27 turnovers. The Waratahs showed real grit in coming back each time a try was scored, but defensive lapses, a struggling scrum and not being able to capitalise on the turnovers lowered their grade.
Stats and Stuff
With round three (two games for our teams) done and dusted I thought we would take a look at the stats from the three matches involving Aussie teams. Is there anything interesting? Are there any stats that are particularly telling? It’s too early in the season to really see if any patterns are emerging with the stats. But there are some interesting things that we can note.
First of all, according to the numbers the Brumbies should have won that game. They bested the Reds in most areas, but it was the penalties and turnovers that killed them. Just one example of how important discipline is. It appears that the Reds learnt from the previous week, only giving away 5 penalties.
The huge penalty count against the Rebels didn’t seem to hurt them, but it is interesting to note that they only notched up 4 offloads for the game. Equal lowest along with the Waratahs. Does this point to a more structured attack? Also, when you compare the numbers of the Rebels with those of the Sunwolves, there really isn’t that much between them. If anything, the Sunwolves performed better in a number of areas than the Rebels. Was the high number of turnovers conceded their downfall?
The Waratahs clocked in with the lowest tackle percentage, not surprising the way the Sharks were busting through their defence. 24 defenders beaten is massive, and points to possible defensive lapses by the Waratahs.
So what generalisations can we make? Well discipline could potentially be a problem for some teams. The Brumbies had a high count this week, but only conceded 7 last week, while the Rebels gave away 11 last week adding to their 16 this week. The Reds showed just how much you can make a team pay through penalties.
It will be very interesting to re-visit the stats again further into the season to see if there are any patterns emerging.
The Rebels Attack
One of the biggest questions during the off season has been around how the Rebels would perform with the significant bolstering of their roster and a new coaching regime. Most of the pre-season questioning and debate was focused around their backline and attack. Like many of you, I have been curious to see how their backline would perform and to have a look at how they attack. Two weeks in to the competition (for the Aussie teams) and we can clearly see that the Rebels can score tries. It was hard to get a true indication after week one as they played the majority of the game with a one-man advantage but after the weekend’s games we can now have a reasonable picture.
The man advantage in the Rebels first game made it a little hard to be sure that the attack they used wasn’t a distortion due to that advantage. What I did find curious that caught my attention watching their first game was the way some of their tries were constructed. Watching the game live it appeared to be a preferred tendency to work from a “structured” platform even with a one-man (two-man for a short period) advantage. It wasn’t until watching the game against the Sunwolves that the Rebels attacking structure and patterns became fairly apparent and appears to rely on a very structured platform.
It appears to me that there are 3 key features to the Rebels attacking platform. Firstly Genia provides the key as most of the time his initial movements signify the direction of the play. Secondly the way they structure the backline for attack; It appears that all players have to take their position for it to fully function. Lastly the positioning of the last two players out wide; the winger hugging the side line but a deliberate spacing of about 10mtrs between the last attacking player and the winger to manufacture space. In regards to this last point its clearly part of an attacking philosophy to go wide quick and exploit this positioning which is highlighted by the amount of long cut out passes wide that have featured in the Rebels games thus far.
The below captures show the backline structures during the games.
Looking at the structure it’s interesting to go back to the first game and look at Haylett-Petty intercept. Good defenders recognise patterns and positioning. I would speculate that due to his familiarity with the attacking structure used by the Rebels he would have seen the Reds players positioning and it would have appeared like he was looking into a mirror. Being fairly easy to read the play he was able to intercept.
Like the Reds found out, over structured plays can be read fairly easily. The other undoing of teams who rely on a structured platform which most Aussie teams seem to do is that we all have to get to our “marks” before we commence the movement. Like a dance troop, unless they all start on their marks and the timing is right it will all fall apart quickly. Looking at the below example, similarly to Haylett-Petty, the Sunwolves defender can see the players positioning and is reading the play. You can se in the below capture what compounds the issue is the need for the Rebels players to get into the structure (get to their starting marks) and you can see that the ball moves too quickly and they can’t get to their pre-set starting marks in time. Also take note of the numbers the Rebels have compared to the Sunwolves particularly inside yet they still go wide and get intercepted.
What this Sunwolves interception does indicate is a real concern about the Rebels abilities to attack when play is unstructured. The need to pre-position by players is telling. Also worth considering is that even though the Sunwolves turned over the ball 23 times the majority of tries came from structured moves. Consider in contrast our Kiwi brethren and their reputation for ruthlessly exploiting turnovers and converting them to tries.
Looking at some other stats around the Rebels attack it reveals that the players 8 through 15 ran for 87% (462mtrs) of the total team meters with the forwards (1 through 7) running for only 70mtrs.
It will be interesting to see if the Rebels attack evolves and how it goes once it is changed by stronger defence and if it can develop and score via unstructured play. But at this stage we have to credit the Rebels backline with some good set plays. Recognising and reading the plays are one thing, but defending against them is another thing all together.
But I can’t leave this here without some “couch coaching” speculation in anticipation of the Brumbies v Rebels clash.
The Brumbies could (will) be in deep trouble with the Rebels attack especially with the wide set up for the wingers to exploit the space outside. The Brumbies have a defensive deficiency that the Kiwi teams have exploited time after time. The Brumbies defend in a compressed formation and have been found vulnerable out wide on many occasions. Usually it tends to isolate the Brumbies wingers and create an overlap for the attacking team. Now think about the Rebels winger and last attacking players positioning I mentioned above and the way they exploit the space and go wide. To compound this Speight has a tendency to advance infield and open up more space.
One other deficiency that it will be interesting to see if the Rebels exploit is the “spring out and run” by the 8/9 (Mafi/ Genia) combination off set piece. The Brumbies tend to load their mid field with forwards to defend (Brumbies forwards make about 80% of the tackles) which may allow the fleet- footed combination the chance to slice strait through the heart off the slower less mobile forwards in the centre of the Brumbies defence.
Super Rugby – what are we seeing?
Week two for the Aussie teams and many are keeping an eye on the ratings and crowd attendances in hope it’s on the rise. Is it entertaining or interesting? Will it attract viewers? What’s going on with the ratings? Are we loving our game again?
Well looking at some comments in forums and on social media we decided that maybe we should compare what Super Rugby might look like for the non-rusted on (without the goggles, blinkers or rose-tinted glasses). From our extensive research on social media we have deduced that a lot all of the issues as to why games are not rating well or attracting much interest can be fairly and squarely blamed on the Kiwis!
Every week the Kiwi game opens the weekend and sets the tone. Usually the games are fast and spectacular, hard fought to the end and is all an all or nothing affair. It’s usually a strap in and hold on affair with nothing left on the table.
So on Friday night the Chiefs and Blues opened up the weekend with something that set the tone for the Aussie teams to follow.
So then we had the Reds V Brumbies which for the non-tragic’s looked like this:
But it rated pretty well (73k). How you may ask? We figure it’s like slow TV. Its bizarrely is addictive and rates really well. Its the only rational explanation we can come up with.
Then we had the Sunwolves v Rebels. The players played well and (as they should) to the whistle but the refereeing was, um, a little liberal, sketchy, random..………
This was followed by prime time Saturday night of nothing! We will save you the test pattern, screen saver or just blank screen.
Then just as the clock ticked over to midnight we had the Waratahs v Sharks …
So fingers crossed we are at the bottom of an upwards trajectory and the “watchabilty” improves over the next few weeks. Now, back to the snow!
