@yeahbutnah said in 1 second ruck - squidge:
Again caveated by me not really knowing what I’m talking about but the offloads in that second test felt more squidge aligned than the first.
Bit of a late (and long..) reply but I was reminded of your remark when watching the NPC.
While there’s certainly a trend in World Rugby these past few years in terms of the attacking offload, in my own view the AB offload plan is more (1) a response to a trend that has been endemic within NZ Rugby itself, and (2) something that deeply originates from within Canterbury rugby, rather than representing an outside influence.
I think, first of all, what Robertson wants to move away from – and which they did reasonably well against the French – is the tendency within NZ Rugby (Super, NPC, AB 7s) to throw blind, speculative offloads.
Watching the Wellington-Canterbury game, there were two very good examples of what, I think, the AB coaches don’t want to see in terms of offloading, where the team does the hard work to create the line break, only for players to throw an offload which isn’t on, effectively wasting the possession and the line break.
Two line breaks made inside the opposition half but zero points scored
First, Love, after making the break from a nicely set up scrum attack, throws the blind offload to his right with the try line in his sight, which is duly intercepted by Punivai. Then, in the second half, Proctor bursts through the line off a rather chaotic but well-timed move, only for him to throw an offload from a compromised position (out of balance, falling to the ground), leading to another turnover. The timing of these turnovers is indicative as well – at the 35th and 45th minutes, respectively – which are typically momentum-shifting points in the game.
While the mindset from Love and Proctor seems like the right one for a fluid attack – KBA, keeping the ball alive, the buzzword from a few years ago – the application, in these instances, is the wrong one. With the Canterbury players consistently trying to get into the passing lanes, the Wellington backs need to have eyes on their support and their hands free to make sure they can efficiently transfer the ball and keep the attack going. If there’s no support visible or the opposition player has you wrapped up, it’s better to take contact and attack the fractured defensive line in a new phase.
It is this kind of wrong application that, I think, the AB coaches are trying to eradicate from their attack, as the ABs simply produced too many turnovers after line breaks in the 2024 season, which cost them a lot of points and more than a few results as well. But looking at some of the decision-making around the offload in the NPC – from All Blacks and experienced campaigners – that won’t be easy as those are some ingrained habits.
Secondly, I believe this kind of emphasis on ‘communicative offloading’ (that’s not a real term but it makes sense to me) isn’t so much something that comes from outside but is rather a foundational premise from Robertson’s coaching background. A central principle of Canterbury and Crusaders rugby – again, mostly stemming from the mind of Wayne Smith – is to finish line breaks with a try. There was only one category that the Crusader attack was ranked first in this season in Super Rugby (Opta Stats), and that was the % of line breaks leading to a try (44.1%). Globally, this ranked only behind the Bulls from South Africa and the two current French powerhouses, Toulouse and Bordeaux Bègles.
But that’s not the Crusaders trying to replicate French or South African trends (as I think someone like Squidge is implying); that is Crusaders’ DNA being recreated around the world (it’s not a coincidence that Ronan O’Gara started talking about KBA after coaching in Christchurch for a few years).
But for this to work at AB-level, the speculative offload needs to be replaced by a smarter offloading game (low-risk, high-reward offloads) to visible support, which I think is what we’ve been seeing more of during the French Test series. But the real test will come against the Boks, who are masters at breaking up support play after line breaks (both legally and illegally).
