Why was Wales’ attacking play so blunt in the Six Nations?
FOR all the talk over the last 12 months of Wales trying to adopt a new offensive style, it was their attacking play that misfired in the 2017 Six Nations, and how.
The only team to score less tries than Wales? Sorry old Italy.
The only teams to make less clean breaks than Wales? The Italians and the Scots.
But not even the Azzurri turned the ball over to the opposition as many times as the men in red. In fact, nobody did it more.
That said, Wales’ attack hasn’t been completely toothless. Since Alex King’s arrival as temporary attack coach, Wales have actually looked dangerous off first phase at times.
I direct you to Liam Williams’ wellexecuted try against England and George North’s brilliant opener against Ireland – one off a scrum, the other following a lineout.
The trouble with Wales is that on the evidence of the Six Nations, they begin to run out of ideas very quickly. The longest build up to any of their eight tries in the tournament was just four phases – Williams’ against Italy.
So where did it all go wrong?
Angles of running...
Wales’ approach play has been hit and miss throughout the Championship. But what really stands out is that when they notch up the phases and get into the opposition 22, it tends to fall apart.
They revert to their default setting - running straight at defenders one or two passes out from a ruck. They’re good at it, too, but it’s not going to break down many defences in the Test arena of 2017. They look to overpower the opposition, build pressure and invite mistakes but if those mistakes aren’t forthcoming they run out of ideas. It becomes pretty easy to make decisions as a defender because Wales’ ball-carriers are all running in straight lines and trying to outmuscle you. There were two real occasions when Wales’ runners came from out to in - Jonathan Davies against Scotland and Rob Evans against England - when taking a pass, and on each occasion it resulted in progress.
This is no coincidence. If a defender can’t see you coming until the last minute, he has very little time to react and make a tackle.
Far too often, Wales just ran straight up the field, whether it be off Dan Biggar or Rhys Webb.
Skills under the microscope
Assuming that the ball can be moved along the line smoothly is not too much to ask at this level but Wales’ passing let them down at various times during the Championship.
Passes that go too high, passes that are too low, passes that are behind the support runners give the defence more chance as players have to slow down and readjust.
At international level, crisp passing should be a given but it wasn’t always the case for Wales. To pick out an example, Jonathan Davies had to hold his run in order to take a pass that was well behind him against France and it resulted in a blown overlap. If that pass is on the button, he’ll get outside his man and Wales would have made real progress.
In total, Wales turned the ball over 70 times in the Championship - not exactly what you’d call looking after the pill.
But this was even more frustrating when it happened in promising positions.
For example, the ball was spilled just outside the Italian 22 in the 10th minute in Rome and the same happened inside the 22 during a dangerous attack at Murrayfield in the 62nd minute. Against France at the weekend, the ball was once again lost in contact just before half-time after a lovely move that had real momentum involving North, Ross Moriarty, Davies and Williams.
Incredibly frustrating for fans, coaches and not least the players themselves.
Where’s the decoy?
Wales’ strike moves, the successful ones we’ve already discussed, were built on misdirection and a number of decoy runners. But as the phases mounted up, their attack was reduced to simply moving the ball along the line until somebody took it into contact. They weren’t asking enough questions of the opposition. The more runners a defender has to look at, the more information he has to process before making a decision about which man to tackle. When that information is having to be processed at speed, the chances of him picking the wrong man and leaving a gap are increased. If a defender looks up and sees one runner heading in a straight line, it’s easy to know who to tackle. If he looks up and sees three men running in different directions, it’s a lot more difficult. And what about using the forwards as a first receiver and then pulling it back to a fly-half on the run? Ireland do this particularly well.
We saw Wales do it against Italy as Alun Wyn Jones fed Sam Davies in the build up to Jonathan Davies’ try, so why didn’t we see it for the rest of the Championship on a more regular basis?
Countless times, Wales built up heaps of phases in the opposition 22, sometimes well over 20, but they just went from side to side without really challenging the defence. For example, in the 59th minute against England, Wales went through 22 phases in the England 22 and there wasn’t a sniff of a decoy runner or anything deceptive. And the same happened after 47 minutes against Ireland – the visitors were a man down at this stage with Jonathan Sexton yellow-carded.
In 18 phases of attack in the Ireland 22, the best Wales could manage was a switch between Biggar and Sam Warburton that took place well behind the gainline, making it easy to defend. There is a time and a place for your big carriers to run hard and straight, sucking in the defence, but you have to mix it up a bit. The more Wales held onto the ball in this Championship, the more predictable they became.
Forcing the issue?
At times, Wales’ attack wasn’t a million miles away from clicking but the offloads just didn’t stick, especially at Murrayfield. Warburton and Biggar combined well in the 18th minute, but the Ospreys man threw a speculative offload that was never on and Wales knocked the ball on. Just minutes after, Webb made a break of his own, taking play deep into the 22 but again the offload was forced and Scotland intercepted it.
Webb failed to gather a high offload
from Jonathan Davies early in the second of that game too, just after the centre was sent through by Ken Owens. Around a quarter of the way through the Italy game, Wales are attacking close to the Italian line when Edoardo Padovani shoots out of the line - just a hint of offside about it - and gets to Biggar.
The Wales pivot tries to force a pretty unlikely pass to Jonathan Davies and the move ends.
Cause for optimism...
Had those offloads stuck, I probably wouldn’t be writing this article, the Six Nations probably wouldn’t have been so bad and Wales would have scored a few more tries. They were inches away from securing a bonus point in Rome, a number of chances went begging against England – not least Webb’s forward pass to Biggar and James Haskell’s cynical infringement – and they were 20 minutes of chaos away from beating France.
But in international rugby you have to deal with pressure. The physical pressure put on by opposition defences and the psychological pressure of executing the right decisions in the heat of battle.
The fact the Welsh offloads didn’t stick, and the fact they lost to England, Scotland and France, meant nothing was there to paper over the cracks.
When Wales varied their attack, they actually looked quite dangerous but we simply didn’t see it often enough. They sleepwalked through phases to what became an inevitable mistake, much like they did when they were unable to get through a 13-man Australian defensive line at the World Cup. Wales have talked a good game when t comes to evolving their style. But I’ve not seen much to suggest things have moved on from that Twickenham loss to the Wallabies.
That, perhaps, is the most worrying aspect of the lot.