Defense wins Championships
-
The point isn't the fitness.
Generally a yellow card results in the opposition having possession, field possession, the invcentive to attack (almost all the AB yellow cards in the past 12 months have been in the 2nd half with a decent lead) and the chance to exploit a compromised defensive pattern from set piece.
Basically the closest you can get to putting handing them the ball in goal and asking them to dot it down. This is the only way teams are scoring against this defense these days.
Even with 80 minutes in a test these days it's basically the only way these teams are breaching this Wayne Smith defense.
-
@rotated - yeah, nah.
Certainly the penalty immediately relating to the yellow card the opposition has possession. Maybe even (in the case of a "red zone" card) field position.
But after that? You can still successfully keep the ball away with only 14 men. You can take your time kicking penalty goals. You can waste a bit of time at scrums.
-
we're not unbeatable, far from it.
that initial burst from the argies showed that linebreaks are quite possible against us - they lack the patience and decision-making to turn them all into points, they don't have the depth/fitness to stay with us for 80 minutes, and they lack a bit of size in the backs to deal with guys like savea.
our first half against the saffas was full of errors - but they didn't even try to capitalise on them, they just kicked it back to us. this is a shit tactic because our back 3 can counterattack, and our lineout is excellent.
our goalkicking is suspect.so: don't play territory, play possession. we don't have dominant tacklers everywhere, so run at them and look to offload to get in behind us and get momentum as the argies did, not allowing our line to reset and come at you. this is the key - the patience to keep the ball until that opportunity presents itself, and the nous to have a crack when it's on.
on defence, choose very carefully which rucks to attack, like joseph's highlanders - otherwise undercommit and focus on linespeed , preventing offloads and attacking the ball whenever possible. harass the halfback. keep discipline at all costs.
and hope you catch us on a bad day. -
@ACT-Crusader said in Defense wins Championships:
@antipodean and yet the cross field kick is one of the more low percentage plays in rugby.
True, but add a couple of Folau's on the wing and the percentage increases.
-
@mariner4life said in Defense wins Championships:
@Rancid-Schnitzel i know it's not sustainable, but just fanning out doesn't work. The saffers on Sunday defended 20 phases on their line before we found a mismatch (well, overlap really). If you sntad off, we just hit and place, the halfback runs up, and throws it one way or the other, and we spread and spread, the defense never gets set, and eventually it's big man on little man, or quick man on slow man, and we exploit.
While it's not sustainable, i think the only hope at the moment is to slow it down at the source, and force some of those fringe runners to commit to rucks.
Obviously just my opinion of course, and seeing as no one is ringing me for a professional coaching vacancy, it's probably less than valid
You're offering alot more suggestions than me mate. I'm just one of those guys who can only offer criticism
In all seriousness, when talking about flooding the breakdown, I immediately get visions of Bled no. 1 when Bono and co were trying to grab everything and we just threw it through the hands and scored because of overlaps. The poor aus wingers on that day didn't know what the fark to do.
But yeah, a conservative game plan won't cut it. Risks have to be taken and plenty of off-loads. The problem with that again is that you risk length of the field counter attacks if you make a mistake.
I reckon the very best option is to hire someone to kneecap Coles, BBBR, Read, BB and BS. But even that might not make a difference.
-
Kneecapping anyone propbly wouldn't cut it as the All Blacks are like a hydra, they will just grow more world beaters if someone goes down 😅