CAN HOGAN PROVE THE TOP SIGNING?
ALL the rugby focus in West Wales has been on how Dwayne Peel will turn things around at the Scarlets.
The return of the former scrumhalf to Llanelli has understandably brought about excitement, with Peel tasked with instilling some of the attacking flair which has dissipated since Wayne Pivac’s final year in charge.
The Scarlets’ ethos has always been about playing a certain brand of rugby and that will be a huge part of Peel’s remit.
But perhaps the biggest issue facing the Scarlets has been their porous defence.
For a while, one of the biggest complaints from fans at Parc y Scarlets has been how easy it has been to score against the West Walians.
In the PRO14 last year, their defence ranked 10th from 12 teams – the two South African sides weren’t involved – while they also conceded 50 points in a game on more than one occasion.
All of that occurred without an official defence coach at the club, with the coaches sharing the duties after defence coach Glenn Delaney stepped up to the head coach role.
So, as much as Peel is a big appointment, it could be argued that the addition of Hugh Hogan from Leinster is just as, if not more, important.
When the Scarlets hired Hogan earlier this summer, the first thing to take notice of was how highly spoken of he was at the Irish province.
His role in Dublin since 2018 was contact skills coach, having been head coach of the province’s U19s, U20s and A teams.
He is credited with helping Leinster develop one of the meanest defences in European rugby and any player who had played under him would tell you as much.
Asked to sum up how Leinster defended last year, Ireland back-row Josh van der Flier spoke about karate black-belt Hogan and the extra element he brought to their game.
“Defending is a mindset,” he told Sportjoe.
“The most basic thing about rugby is that if you are more physical and you win the gainline, then you will probably win the game.
“We have obviously built that up, getting our preparation up.
“But we can’t underestimate the contribution of Hugh Hogan, our skills coach, getting that tackle technique right.
“We obviously have strategies for each game, subtle things.
“Another time you want to tackle with two people rather than one-onones if they are much bigger guys or try to chop tackle and take them low. So building those strategies each week is obviously a huge part of it.
“But at the end of the day, it does come down – no matter how technical you are about it – to physicality and mindset. If you don’t have those two factors then you won’t really be successful.”
There’s plenty of work to be done, of course.
The pre-season win over Leicester
showed some flaws in their red-zone defence, while Edinburgh crossed for four tries in their 26-22 victory on Saturday
Hogan’s efforts at Leinster would suggest some of those issues will be addressed, particularly the goal-line defence where Hogan’s technical prowess should shine.
The big task at hand will be taking charge of an entire defensive system and improving the decision-making, not just the tackle technique, so system errors don’t happen.
If he manages to do that successfully, the Irishman might just prove to be the best addition of the summer.