The Waratahs have created an entertaining attacking game style with a twist – it’s built on blue-collar grunt work.
It doesn’t rely on trick shots, lightning-quick backs, or Rod Macqueen-style intellect and players in motion.
The attack is built on three planks: winning collisions; taking on the defence directly and offloading after the collision; then supporting, getting up off the ground quickly, and supporting again.
Its elegance is in its simplicity, its beauty is in its directness, and its excitement is in its risk. It takes skill, courage, and fitness to pull it off. And a coach willing to push it and commit to it.
Winning collisions
The Tahs have a big pack, but are not really big in the backs, so they can’t rely solely on power to win collisions. It doesn’t matter though. Bernard Foley, one of the smaller guys in rugby, routinely wins his collisions. So too Michael Hooper.
The Tahs win collisions with fast recycling, direct running lines and footwork just before the collision. Both backs and forwards avoid the dominant shoulder of the defender by stepping at the line, and get through the line even if tackled.
The offload
The offload in the tackle is their weapon. They coach it, practise it, and execute it in both the forwards and the backs. It is the perfect weapon for modern rugby, because defences are so well organised that playing the ball before the line, a traditional Australian specialty, is now more easily read.
On the other hand, offloads are very hard to stop if the ball runner runs straight, uses footwork to suck in more than one defender and free his arms, and the support runner hits the correct tight line straight into the gap vacated by the falling tackler.
If you run straight into guys and drop to the ground, like the Reds in 2014, you are easy meat for decent teams.
Support
The final piece of the puzzle is support play. Support players are required to run into the gaps created and receive the offload, but they also run decoy lines to hold up the defence, or clean out defenders in attacking rucks to keep the attack rolling.
Doing this well for multiple phases requires supreme fitness, correct support technique (understanding how to read the ball runner and change your running angles at the right time to hit the hole they created for you), and the mental toughness to keep getting up and doing it time after time.
The Tahs under Michael Cheika have famously put in the work to raise their fitness levels and mental toughness, and now the method in the madness is becoming apparent.
Influence on the Wallabies
The Wallabies deliberately introduced elements of this attack into their play on the 2013 end-of-year tour.
Tries involving the likes of Scott Fardy, Stephen Moore and Ben Mowen (yes, I know they are all Brumbies!) running direct lines a few passes wide of the ruck and combining with each other and the backs to punch holes and offload wonderfully to eager support are evidence of this.
I would expect (and hope) to see more of this in 2014.
The French are equally capable of playing this style of game, as evidenced brutally when they used this tactic on us in our last loss to them.
I can’t wait to see how the Wallabies attack the French, but I expect we will see a lot more Cheika-ball on display if all goes to plan.
Liam Ovenden
Roar Pro
Fardy seems to do it naturally. Good Rats boy!
Suzy Poison
Guest
Liam and Chopper, can I comment as a Saffa. Yep Boks have a traditional kicking for territory style, but even that is simplistic way of describing Bok rugby, especially the 2013 season. Even the AB's after the Ellis park game, said, we have never played a Bok team that plays like that before. Too bad it wasn't a winning formula against AB's. It's never that cut and dried. Even old Morne Steyn who is always berated on this site, is actually a lovely passer of the ball, and he has shown glimpses of that style, in the past, but mostly he plays according to a kick chase game plan. So yes, in a way, I agree with you Chopper. However, Chopper, mate, I have been to a few Tahs games, and was shocked at how little the Tahs kicked. They is no one like Foley in SA rugby. Maybe Goosen. Foley is a very underrated player, and he is more the reason for the Tahs success than the glamour boy who finishes off the tries Folau. Honestly the only real similarity between Tahs and Boks like Liam is saying is the forwards and the way they approach the breakdown. The Tahs are playing like the Reds of 2011, except the Reds don't have the forwards to play that style anymore, and the breakdown laws have changed. So I am also going to disagree with you mate.
Chopper1
Guest
Nice one boet...
Choppet1
Guest
Nice one mate :) Well in that case, great article and hope your boys pummel the frogs!
jutsie
Guest
interesting that you note that brumbies forwards were playing a similar style of rugby for the wallabies last year. I believe that the brumbies also focussed alot on the offload and winning the collision zone when they were at their peak last year. The game against the sharks in particular saw many offloads amongst the forwards, however since losing ita vaea for the season and fotu aleua for most of this season they seemed to have moved away from this style of rugby.
Liam Ovenden
Roar Pro
Boks were brilliant last year - fair call. If that is what Springbok rugby is from now on, then sure! I think most of us would say that last years team departed from traditional Springbok rugby, hence my confusion at your comment.
Chopper1
Guest
Tries? You mean those things we scored 9 of against Arg to post the highest RC/3n winning margin ever against Arg in 2013? And 4 against Aus in Brisbane (vs Aus 1)? Those things? And 3 against Aus in SA (vs Aus 1)? The things we scored 2 of with 13 men against 15 man NZ (NZ 3), and then 3 (vs 4) against NZ in SA? Giving us a pd of +86 vs +87 for NZ and -20 for Aus? The team that kicked less than NZ (quite a lot less) and ran more meters? Okay it didn't win us the tournament and I'm not saying we should have or could have, etc. But the point is the narrative that because our sr franchises are playing off the forwards and 9 the boks will, is not necessarily true. And remember, jake (sorry, let's call him JW to avoid people spitting) won the 3N in the season he took over the most demoralized bok team ever. They played hard rugby, the exploited turnovers or defensive lapses and scored tries. With the backs even. Exactly what the Brumbies (who are playing exactly as they did last year, no tweaks) are doing, after JW took over a broken franchise and got them to the final in his first full season. As for the boks, they posted brilliant running stats (too much IMHO as a couple of mauls against NZ might have helped...) last year when no SA sr sides were even sniffing the playoffs (except the cheetahs..), and the Brumbies were in the final and the reds were still hot. But that doesn't translate into the test arena unless you're the ABs and have a national style. No Aus teams play NZ rugby and the 2 sides that are contenders are basically playing bok rugby. One or two games does not a blueprint make. Look at the bulls dismantling the Brumbies - do they now play winning rugby with finess also? Nope. But they look that way when physicality works. When it doesn't (as happened to the tahs against ACT earlier this season) and they play a team that's in their face, they look average, boring and... The same as the tahs in the same circumstances. We shall see. I'm calling Jake's Brumbies to get in the tahs faces and take it again...
Liam Ovenden
Roar Pro
Lineout a real problem for them.
RobC
Roar Guru
Yep. Good summary Liam. Just like the Brumbies rebuild. Keep things simple, but do them better than others. The other main difference is Cheika brought in some really serious units who can inflict damage. Set piece still not where it should be though.
PeterK
Guest
agree
PeterK
Guest
both are power rugby but that is where the similarity ends. Tahs have more subtilty and skills, they use their backs more. Also they run at gaps rather than at players.
Working Class Rugger
Roar Guru
Chopper1, Can't be. The Tahs focus on scoring tries.
Jeznez
Guest
Nice piece Liam. Quality analysis.
Daz
Guest
I think Cheika summed it up when he said he wants them to work as hard off the ball as they do on it. It's easier to feel energized when you've got the ball in two hands in front of you. Ego and pride kick in and you feel like you can run all day for yourself. It's harder when you are chasing the ball. That's when character and conditioning kick in and you have to do it for your mates and the team and not let them down. It's a long slow process to get someone who is used to being selfish to start thinking the other way. Some players like Robinson are still a work in progress.
Liam Ovenden
Roar Pro
? Springboks are obviously physical, but there is a lot of subtlety underpinning the Tahs attack that the Boks are not noted for. Also, the Tahs rarely kick it. I don't think they are playing a Springbok type game at all. Even if it was advisable to do so, the Tahs don't have the players to pull it off anyway.
Chopper1
Guest
It's called springbok rugby
Working Class Rugger
Roar Guru
The Tahs have developed an pleasing power game this season. It operates off the theory that if you run, hit and do everything on the pitch harder than the opposition then 9 times out of 10 you'll come out on top. Sounds elegantly simple but as you allude to it takes a huge degree of skill to execute/ Something that seems to have begun to clicked over the past month. Not quite there yet but week on week, it's getting there. The building block to this. Cheika's summer fitness regime. It's relentless but the players seem to respond and are seeing the benefits of their labours. Long may it continue.