Let's get technical: Attacking structures in rugby

A few weeks ago an old friend and I, accompanied by a few beers, got together at my place to watch some rugby on a typically chilly South African April Saturday.

My friend hails from Pretoria, and he is an out-and-out Bulls supporter, but not really a rugby man after my own heart.

He watches it with us whenever we go out to a pub or have a braai at a friend’s, but he rarely watches rugby of his own accord and of the current Bulls he only knows survivors from the 2007 to 2010 golden years.

I didn’t mind though, rugby and a beer with a friend is always welcome in my book.

But before the game came the highlights from all the previous games in that particular round. My friend studied the Australasian match ups with gruelling focus, before dropping the bomb that all South Africans get so tired of hearing.

“Damn, their skills are amazing,” he said, his gaze fixated on the television. “You know the game don’t you? How do they do it? The ball just goes everywhere, it never stops. I wish we played like that.”

It was hard to argue with his point. As I have confessed previously, the All Blacks drew me into the sport at the 2011 World Cup with their exciting brand of rugby. Like my friend I was rugby uninitiated at the time, but even as an outsider I couldn’t help but admire the magnificence with which our Australasian counterparts play the game. It was dazzling and inviting and it inevitably led to my ascension to true rugby fanatic status.

His question raised a few of my own that day, and I set out to uncover the truth of attacking rugby. Through a whole lot of research and invaluable experience I gained physically on the rugby field, I’ve unearthed a celestial gem of attacking enlightenment.

The first question that plagued my mind after that day was whether all the majestic showings we see week in and week out were pre-planned or in fact a matter of open-minded players just winging it, making the right choices at the right moments. I eventually concluded that it was a bit of both.

It is laughably easy to get sucked into the whole ‘they trust their instincts’ deal whenever you dissect a typical New Zealand game. Indeed my friend was under the impression that the Kiwis were just passing and catching like crazy and were clinical enough to make the most of their chances, but to completely believe that would be a mistake. It might look unorganised, but you would be surprised how much structure there is when you look at it in a technical sense.

At my local club our old coach had to resign following new family commitments. In his place, we were introduced to an ex-player who’s been around the block, and we were assured that things would be happening a little different than the previous three years.

The very first thing that was corrected was that we were no longer forwards or backs, no, we became ‘players’ and failure to refer to ourselves as such, or refer to one another as a forward or a back, would result in three 400-metre sprints for the whole team each and every time we “infringe at the breakdown”, the ‘breakdown’ meaning the team culture.

My first thought was that our new coach was destroying rugby at its core. No forwards? No backs? Disregard the greatest rivalry in world rugby? I couldn’t live with this, so I referred to our scrummie as a ‘back with fabulous hair’. I never made that mistake again.

Secondly, I found our new team mentality to be refreshing. We even use rugby terms outside training now. Well sort of anyway. We’ve made a habit of acting as ballboys for the first team solely to secure ‘turnovers’ – meaning we take their balls and give them the ones that have no more grip on them. When doing so our coach would comment that the “turnover is good”. It’s fun, but anyway.

After laying down the law our new mentor said that he reviewed our matches and that he wasn’t pleased with our attacking and defensive structures, and he immediately set out to correct it. In the past we would treat attack like many perceive it to be – random and full of compromise. Get the ball and then either chuck it or put the head down, that was our motto.

Anyway we began spending inordinate amounts of time identifying and implementing new structures and, it made the game that much more exciting and made us better than we had ever been.

Thus I learnt that structure in attack is just as important as in defence. The only tangible difference is that a structured attack can look so unstructured that most viewers would deny its existence. But here’s the rub, structured attack is much more difficult than structured defence because every single phase of attack has a call and every single call requires a certain kind of job for a particular player in the team; forgetting either your call or your role negates the whole idea of the attack.

When you attack there are only two results you aim for, either penetrating the line or gaining forward momentum in order to launch your next assault. When you penetrate you look for any scoring opportunities, and when there are none you focus on winning as much territory as possible and subsequently securing the ball.

Last weekend former Springbok coach Nick Mallett gave his opinion as to why South African teams tend to struggle on attack and why New Zealanders and Australians prosper in this regard more often than not. Kiwi teams practice against one another in training as an attacking and defending side. It forces them to confront situations they’ll find themselves in in a game, and that is why they’re so clinical.

Since our new coach took over we start every single practice with a 30-minute game of touch rugby where scores are kept, but it’s not your average game of touchies that you often encounter in the Republic.

There are no set amount of touches that signal a turnover. One team kicks off, the other receives and the game begins. A one handed touch requires the ball carrier to pass to a support runner within three seconds. Holding onto the ball for anything longer than three seconds is turned over immediately. This forces not only quick hands from the carrier, but high intensity and urgency in the support runners to instantaneously pick the right angles or distribute the right way.

A two-handed touch, or more accurately grabbing hold of a player, demands a one-handed offload from the ball carrier, again within three seconds. This is a great way to practice those difficult Sonny Bill Williams passes everyone tries to emulate.

Finally a wrap-around with both arms from the defender means you go to ground as if tackled and you place the ball. Here you get five seconds to comply, but the opposing team can turn it over if there is no one to clear it within the amount of time given to the attacking side. This teaches urgency to play the ball and the great thing about this brand of touchies is that you can actually practice phase play without contact.

Two things about this game stand out for me. The first is that like Mallett says, it teaches you to develop an all-round skill set, since those are the kinds of conditions you’ll find in a real game. Speed to the breakdown, quick thinking and level-headedness is needed. The second is that it combines both skills and fitness. The game is literally non-stop for half an hour. One of the most annoying things that I find is doing fitness without the ball because for me it means doing half the job, but doing fitness with handling, that works much better and it’s much more fun.

So after this is done we get to the real deal and here is where structure actually plays a big part. Once you understand it you’ll see the same kinds of patterns in professional rugby games. The All Blacks do this kind of thing in games ridiculously often and it’s rarely picked up by spectators.

After the game of touchies we form a grid in the shape of an L with five markers a couple of metres apart. Each player lines up with a marker and the ball is spread from side to side, giving the ball to the next group. No doubt all of you who have played rugby know this procedure, but there is an added ace in the hole. Every single group uses what we call a ‘paint ball’.

A ‘paint ball’ is exactly what the name suggests, multicolours that specify a certain movement. For instance a ‘blue’ would be simple hands from side to side. A ‘green’ means a loop-around between the fly-half and the scrum-half, who the sends the ball over yonder. A ‘red’ could mean skipping both centres and going straight for the winger. Each paint ball colour is a set movement and every single player should know what to do in any position, that’s why we don’t refer to one another as backs or forwards anymore. Like the All Blacks, every single player must be able to perform a set job in any position for the sake of continuity.

For instance we have a move we call a ‘black ball’. The black ball is done from a lineout where the ball is thrown at the far back, then given to the scrummie who sends it to fly-half, who then gives the inside centre the crash ball.

From the lineout we are divided into three pods. The first three players in the first pod move to the far side of the field in the same direction the attack was heading, the second pod position themselves next to the winger, while the third pod who acted as the jumper and lifters stay where they are.

As the inside centre makes contact we then rely on the backs to secure the ball (I know, I know my forward friends, God I hope my coach isn’t a Roarer) and after that the ball comes back to the side the lineout was formed, where the two pods and the winger are currently positioned. Then you have the choice to either take contact, play the next pod or play the winger. Options aplenty.

When looking at moves like those from the side line it looks very random and spur of the moment, which is exactly my point. The All Blacks have a near telepathic understanding of how they want to attack and you can thank attacking structure for that. They are well coached in those arts, whereas the Springboks, unfortunately, are not.

The Springboks have a very simple attacking structure consisting of only three variables. They either commit forwards to pods around the ruck or they give it to the backline. Their third method is bringing either a winger or a fullback in at an angle, like Willie le Roux or Bryan Habana. While it is safe, it is very predictable. You almost never see South Africans perform an inside pass in a flowing attack.

I hope you enjoyed my attacking structure analysis, next up is the defence.