by royc on Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:02 pm
I was scratching my head after the game trying to work out why we are not very good at scoring tries against the better teams. The top 6 in the league (Ulster excepted) are averaging 4 tries a game, Embra just 2 - and only one against the better teams we have met so far (one against Scarlets, one against Leinster, one against Cheetahs).
We can talk about errors, slow to breakdown, slow service from the halfbacks and so on, but watching the back play v Cheetahs, a few things stood out. Fife on the right wing got the ball a few times, but too often a hospital pass and he was anyway smothered by the drift defence. van der Merwe on the left wing, who looked like he might be the most potent ER back, hardly saw the ball, went about 30 mins with barely a touch.
What happened instead was that Dean and JJ carried up endlessly, invariably hit a defensive brick wall, recycled, and off we go again, all to no avail.
What is wrong with that? I happened to watch the highlights of the AP on Sunday, great viewing because it cuts out the standard forward bits and shows the build-up to the tries. There were some absolute crackers and it was surprising how many of them came from the centres. Against a standard, shoulder-to-shoulder AP defensive line, centres were accelerating and stepping, dummying, spinning, sliding/wriggling/barging through, using a whole bag of tricks. The passing from the half backs was generally nothing special and sometimes quite casual, but the centres still seemed able to turn it into an impressive attack.
Dean carries up valiantly but like a former 6, goes bang into contact, eventually recycles and any momentum is lost. JJ at least tries to step his man and slide though, but the Cheetahs' defence, as with Scarlets and Leinster, was up in position and the door was bolted.
It was interesting how readily the AP centres realised when nothing was on and put in a grubber or a chip-kick behind the line or laid the ball back to the breakaway forwards to change the angle of attack.
I like Dean and think he has a lot of promise at 12, but someone has to upskill him a lot in attacking moves. Ditto JJ, he is good but needs to lay the ball back, or get it swiftly to his wing, or boot it, it is not obligatory to continually run at a brick wall when there's pretty obviously nothing on, he is not the biggest player and can't just barge through.
In short, the problem seems to me to lie with the centres, and in particular their skills training, rather then the half backs, albeit it would assist if the latter could do their bit rather more accurately and swiftly.