CLEVER SET-PIECE PLAYS from goal-line drop-outs have become a calling card for Andy Farrell’s Ireland.
Hugo Keenan’s effort against France in the Six Nations last year was a memorable example, Ireland dusting down an old Joe Schmidt lineout play, cleverly converting it into goal-line drop-out move, and adding a few wrinkles to produce a brilliant try.
In South Africa, Ireland have unveiled a new goal-line drop-out play that delivered a beautiful try for Conor Murray in the first Test.
Yesterday, Ireland threw a new variation of the play at the Springboks to devastating effect. The Springboks were kept tryless in Durban but Ireland scored a beauty through Murray to help them to their 25-24 win.
Speaking after the game, Farrell revealed that forwards coach Paul O’Connell leads Ireland’s work on these goal-line drop-out plays.
“Paul comes up with them,” said Farrell. “We refine them and go through the detail, work hard on them together.”
O’Connell is well known as an avid watcher of rugby and something of a magpie. He talks about copy-and-pasting things he has seen elsewhere but making edits along the way.
And that seems to have been the case with this smart play Ireland used in South Africa.
When Munster beat the Bulls in Pretoria back in April, they unleashed this clever move on second phase of a lineout attack, with Alex Kendellen nearly breaking clear after running a hidden line to take an inside pass from Jack Crowley.
Initially, it looks like Crowley will throw the inside pass to Shane Daly, but the Munster wing darts further infield, drawing a Bulls defender with him, to open up space for Kendellen to burst into. Only an excellent tackle from Bulls centre David Kriel – brother of Boks centre Jesse – denies Kendellen further progress.
O’Connell, who is close friends with Munster attack coach Mike Prendergast, clearly liked what he saw.
So, as they had done with Schmidt’s old dummy loop play, Ireland took this Munster move and adapted it for goal-line drop-out receipt, adding their own flourishes to it.
As we discussed during the week, Ireland’s version worked in slick fashion as Rónan Kelleher snuck through to send Murray over for a brilliant try.
The Boks would have expected a variation on the play if there was a goal-line drop-out in the second Test but they possibly would have thought the tweak would be within the pod of forwards on second phase, from where Kelleher broke through.
Instead, Ireland shifted the hidden inside pass to third phase.
Let’s take a closer look.
Handré Pollard scuffs his drop-out and it sits up ideally for Caelan Doris, who has the unenviable job of carrying straight down the throat of the Boks.
Doris is tasked with providing the platform from which Ireland can play. He is brave in running directly into a massive double tackle by Ox Nché and RG Snyman.
Garry Ringrose, Tadhg Beirne, and Josh van der Flier’s first roles are to hit this breakdown, ensuring quick, clean ball even after a dominant Boks tackle.
While Doris has been carrying, the other Irish players have been organising themselves as rehearsed during the week.
To the right of Murray, we see the same shape as Ireland used for the Kelleher linebreak in the first Test.
Andrew Porter is in the middle of the pods of three forwards, with James Ryan inside and Tadhg Furlong outside [red above], while out-half Jack Crowley [blue] is in the boot behind Porter and Kelleher [pink] is lingering as if to run the same late, hidden line to take an inside pass from Porter.
But that’s not the case as Porter carries directly, Furlong making a good clearout on Siya Kolisi, and Ryan thundering in too.
As we see above, Kelleher works around the corner to the right with Crowley – they’re key on the next phase.
Just as Murray moves to sweep the ball right again, there’s an important bit of detail to his left.
Having cleared out the first breakdown, Beirne and van der Flier work hard to run hard lines to Murray’s left.
These lines – like Ciarán Frawley’s for the Murray try in the first Test – are crucial because they keep the Boks honest on that left side of the ruck.
Watch below as Boks scrum-half Faf de Klerk checks as the Boks worry about the lines from Beirne and van der Flier.
This means that the scrum-half isn’t available to sweep behind their frontline on the Boks’ left-hand side when Ireland actually strike there.
De Klerk being absent on that sweeping line means Ireland can finish without another breakdown.
The shape to Murray’s right poses lots of questions for the Boks. It’s similar to the shape for the Kelleher break in the first Test, although the hooker is not the hidden runner this time.
Kelleher [yellow above] is the obvious inside pass option for Crowley when the out-half receives the ball, while centre Robbie Henshaw and lock Joe McCarthy [red] provide a real ball-carrying threat on Crowley’s outside.
Fullback Jamie Osborne [pink] is the man doing his best to stay hidden this time and he’s the one who will run the strike line.
Below, we see what the Ireland shape means for the Springboks defence.
Hooker Bongi Mbonambi has to worry about the running threat of Crowley [blue above], while Jessie Kriel and Cheslin Kolbe outside him have to respect the physical power of Henshaw and McCarthy [red].
That means tighthead prop Frans Malherbe [yellow] is tasked with defending the inside pass option to Kelleher.
No one is assigned to deal with Osborne when Ireland change the picture at a late stage.
Kelleher does a good job of darting on an ‘unders’ line back to Malherbe’s inside shoulder, drawing him infield as Osborne times his run to perfection.
As we’ll see, Malherbe fully commits to tackling Kelleher but it’s important to jump back to some Ireland play two minutes before this.
Ireland are in their phase-play attack when an inside pass from Furlong sends McCarthy on a bust through the middle.
Watch Malherbe [number 3] in the clip above – he fails to read to the inside pass to McCarthy and is instead attracted onto Furlong, who is already being dealt with by Nché. Malherbe can’t adjust back in and Franco Mostert falls off a tackle attempt on McCarthy that Marherbe could have been part of.
So now, less than two minutes later, Malherbe seemingly doesn’t want to miss the inside pass and he commits to dealing with Kelleher.
But as we see, Kelleher is the decoy and Osborne the true strike runner.
There’s really not much space for Osborne to go through here and he actually hits off Mbonambi as the Boks hooker tackles Crowley, who does a good job of darting at the line to fix Mbonambi.
Osborne has to juggle the ball and he’s caught from behind by Kriel, who has turned back in.
But Osborne has the poise to steady himself and offload to Henshaw, who has flooded through in support.
Henshaw calmly draws Pollard as the out-half closes up from the backfield and fires the ball back inside to Murray, who has burst up on the inside support line.
Pieter-Steph du Toit makes a typically lung-busting effort to rescue the situation for the Boks but it’s too late. A smart play from Ireland, who added a new layer to their new goal-line drop-out play, has sliced the Boks apart.
There was to be last-gasp drama with Frawley’s drop goal but the seven points earned with his brilliant play were as crucial as anything in deciding a brilliant game.
Rassie Erasmus’ words about Ireland ahead of the World Cup game between these teams last year, revealed in the Chasing the Sun documentary, proved prophetic.
“They get so much satisfaction out of, we are clever, we are clever,” said Erasmus.
“It’s almost that that lifts them. When something spectacular works out, like a move with six different fuckin’ lines, they feel like, ‘Now we clever, now we clever, now we fuckin’ smart.’”
