Saracens question

[Dai Perk]

Hello again, my friends.

This past weekend, Saracens had a very impressive win over Gloucester. The announcers kept mentioning that the Saracens were hardly committing any players to the ruck, freeing up a ton of defenders horizontally, thus frustrating the Gloucester attack.

As a noob, I could see easily what they meant, but my question remains - what is the tactic Gloucester could have used to combat this? It was clearly very effective, so it made me wonder why everyone doesn't play that style?

Thanks in advance, and thanks to all who have already been so kindly indoctrinating me - it's hard to find answers over here in the USA!

Cheers,

-Dave

 

[Fuzzy du Plessis]

The usual tactic to counteract this is to play close to the ruck with pick and goes and one out runners off the scrum half. You are nearly guaranteed to retain possession after every tackle so you can just do this over and over until eventually you make enough ground that the defence has to pull in tighter.

The main reason you don't see all teams defending like this is that it just doesn't work as well in European Cup and International matches. At that level teams are both more physical and more creative in attack, so if you allow them continuous possession they will find gaps in your defence even if it is a well organised 14 man wall. You're more likely to stop them by attacking the breakdown and slowing them down.

You generally find this tactic more in the GP as English refs are very strict in what the jackler can get away with whilst allowing the attacking team to dive into the breakdown like a ******* missile, so it's just not worth it a lot of the time. Apparently the RFU have spoken to the referees about changing this, so hopefully we'll see a more aggressive battle at the breakdown as the season goes on.

 

[Dai Perk]

Ah HA, that makes perfect sense. Do you think Gloucester would have had a better chance if they had done things differently, or were they just outmatched?

Thanks for the quick and thoughtful reply - and I love the Fuzzy Dunlop reference. Just finished another full re-watch a couple days ago!

 

[Scotty]

Not committing players to the breakdown can backfire so easy, it gives a team quick ball meaning a team cam keep the momentum and crashing forward putting teams onto the back foot which draws in players.

Gloucester could have done better changing their game plan and with Ackerman polledri morgan ect are strong carriers but they played with more width bringing cips into the game meaning they went wide alot which played into sarries hands as not commiting to the breakdown means theres less holes out wide to exploit.

Teams will often do it to counter a gameplan of a team thats main attack is the backs but doing it against a team like Chiefs wouldnt work as well as we play a forwards orientated game.

 

[Dai Perk]

Again, very very useful! Cipriani seemed to be way off his usual self, perhaps he was frustrated by Saracens' game plan, and his own team's lack of adjustments... they should have 'called an audible' during halftime for sure!

 

[BPM]

I'd also add that Saracens' linespeed is one of the major facets of their defensive system. Gloucester tried to get around this by having Twelvetrees take the ball at first receiver and keeping Cipriani further out to try to get outside of the blitz. In theory it could have worked but on the day it was badly executed and they looked a lot better when they brought Atkinson on and changed their game plan.

I'm surprised that they didn't play closer in to the ruck though. As Scotty said, they have some excellent heavy carriers who could/should have been utilised more. I get that they had a game plan they were working to, but I don't really understand why they persevered with it when it clearly wasn't working?

 

[Dai Perk]

Exactly! As a lifetime fan of the New England Patriots, that's one of the best things about Coach Belichick - if the game plan isn't working, he will throw the whole thing out and change anything and everything at halftime. We're off to a poor start this year, but usually, if we're losing at the half, don't expect it to continue, because we'll come out with a brand new plan in the second half. Didn't seem like Gloucester were really willing to do that.