Pictionary analysis of Ellis Park Test

Picture this. A picture tells a thousand words. It left a haunting image in my mind. We are constantly told to look at the global picture. In a World Cup year, that picture is of your captain holding the William Webb Ellis trophy aloft.

These expressions speak of a visual power that casts a spell on us. We absorb and process visual information so much more easily than the written word.

Rugby already has video analysis to back up statistics and training drills. I wondered though whether the visual side of things could be further exploited.

That’s when I took it upon myself to analyse last Saturday’s Test at Ellis Park with Pictionary data.

A successful rugby team does not need to be picture perfect. As the Highlanders demonstrated this year, it’s more a matter of timing. The Highlanders’ season was geared towards the global picture, resting its stars and conceding certain matches in order to be fighting fit for the crunch matches.

Furthermore, the team was by no means full of crack artists. Despite its star backline players such as Waisake Naholo, Aaron and Ben Smith, its pack was unheralded but extremely cohesive.

They were, though, very much in tune with each others’ play. We saw a glimpse of that on Saturday with Lima Sopoaga’s instinct from his break to draw in the covering tacklers and link up with the man outside him he knew all along was going to be there.

That was a pure Pictionary moment right there and then. It was as if Lima Sopoaga had been given the task of drawing the boy band NSYNC and coincidentally Ben Smith was very much ‘in sync’ with his team mate’s intentions.

Equally, you do not have to be a talented artist to do well in Pictionary. If a player has to draw a pot and spends 50 seconds drawing an exquisitely elaborate kitchen and only begins to start on the pot when the sand timer is down to its final grains, you won’t get very far.

Sometimes the simple pictures are the most effective. The trick is to do it quickly under pressure but not make the drawing appear rushed or without an appropriate context. A four-lined stick pot on a simply drawn stove top will often do a more effective job than a sketch artist’s impression of an eye-witness account of a pot.

However, there are times when something a little more left-field is required to break the deadlock. For instance, someone might draw a crude picture of a cigarette with smoke emanating from it and then a picture of a bud beside it. It only takes one teammate in support who instantly makes the connection and you’re away laughing.

Rugby is no different, and sometimes teams tend to over-complicate things. South Africa and New Zealand started at a frenetic pace but were rushing their drawings early on. Knock-ons, balls spilled forward and passes not going to hand were the equivalent of a mixture of incomplete drawings and badly conceived ideas.

It was clear from the outset what both team’s starting cards were. That card for the Springboks was ‘flood the breakdown’. Breakdown was effectively drawn by Bismarck du Plessis, Heinrich Brüssow and Francois Louw, and the pack got in behind that concept in unison, and the backs correctly guessed the phrase.

This was beautifully illustrated in the tenth minute, with the Springboks getting their first opportunity at a slice of pie. Their card was an object and the drawing they had to make was ‘poached egg’.

After a series of long-range kicks, Dagg decided to do something different. He fed a pass to Kieran Read. Bismarck du Plessis instantly pounced on the idea of the egg and turned his opponent. The arriving Springbok players got on board with what Bismarck had done and then it was Schalk Burger who proposed the idea of the different ways of preparing eggs.

He scrambled the ball out wide with a wonderful cut-out pass. A light went on inside Willie Le Roux and the impressive Jaco Kriel sensed his teammate knew the answer and turned the egg inside to Willie Le Roux who ran unmarked shouting ‘poached egg’ to the try line.

It took New Zealand far longer to get their first piece of pie. They had started with the difficult card of ‘run South Africa off their feet.’ James Broadhurst kept nervously shouting Bigfoot and drowned out better ideas.

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that not many ideas were being put forward. The pack was very quiet and they weren’t in tune with each other as they tended to be operating individually and not as a team.

Try as they might in that first half, the All Blacks were incapable of building continuity. They couldn’t seem to build any momentum and kept handing the initiative back to the Springboks.

Conversely, for all their dominance, South Africa couldn’t extend their lead. They just weren’t landing on the pieces of pie and consequently couldn’t exert any pressure.

This is one of the great strengths of New Zealand. When most teams have a poor passage of play, they concede points. Enough points to change the context of the match. New Zealand were hanging on for grim death.

This isn’t the first time Ma’a Nonu has had a shoulder injury and carried playing on. It’s unclear when exactly he got it, and I suspect the veteran pairing of Nonu and Conrad Smith were being shown up by their younger counterparts well before it occurred. The veteran centres weren’t the only ones having an off-colour day.

Despite their inability to get into the game, New Zealand approached the magic minute mark just before half time only seven points down. This was when they arguably had an undeserved shot at a slice of pie given how that first half had been played.

They had the difficult card and the word was ‘capitalise’. There are many ways of approaching this card but New Zealand broke down this difficult card and made it look relatively easy.

Aaron Smith drew a crude drawing of New Zealand with a box kick, and even though it went to opposition hands, Richie McCaw summised that the dot around the bottom of the North Island was Wellington.

Lima Sopoaga expanded on this and made the breakthrough with a capital idea. He pierced the line and led the covering defence towards him. Although unsighted, he drew a pair of eyes that Ben Smith followed on the outside. When the basketball overhead pass came out to Ben Smith, he gleefully took the ball shouting ‘capitalise’ and worked his way under the posts using a well-timed step.

Psychologically, it must not be overstated what these types of scores do to teams. The opposition battle hard and gain ascendancy but fail to make the scoreboard reflect their dominance.

New Zealand headed to the sheds thinking ‘well that was pretty shabby but at least no real damage was done.’

It is to South Africa’s credit that they scored first after the break. It was an effort reminiscent of the Cornal Hendricks try in Wellington in 2014. This is likely to be a ploy used by many teams in this World Cup to break defences. It has a rugby league air about it where the attack drifts looking for holes and a well-timed offload coincides with a well-timed run on the appropriate angle.

The card the Springboks had was ‘incision’ and Handre Pollard had the good sense to draw a crude but effective drawing of a big scalpel and a patient lying on an operating table. He then drew a line down the patient’s body with an arrow pointing to the scalpel and Jesse Kriel was on the same wavelength and ran a great line away from the defender and ran through unopposed to the line.

Incision and precision because these are plays that can easily lead to intercept passes if not executed properly.

This type of play was what was needed from South Africa later in the second half but instead the pack took on the responsibility of trying to score, but this is where I felt South Africa should have given the young playmaker the responsibility of conjuring up more of these plays.

A bizarre series of circumstances lead to this conservative approach and this was the period of play where the fortunes of both teams reversed.

It only took two minutes for New Zealand to have another shot at a piece of pie. The card was an action card and the word was ‘teleport.’

Somehow Dane Coles managed to get himself to the centre of the field from a scrum on the right-hand side of the field. Nobody had really drawn anything and out of nowhere came Dane Coles. Malakai Fekitoa jokingly said ‘teleporter’ and gave an offload to the hooker running an inside line away from Willie Le Roux.

They say Coles has better speed over 40m than his Hurricanes teammateJulian Savea and I for one am happy to believe that. He reduced the Springbok covering defence to bystanders and the man with pulled down socks flew to the line shouting out ‘teleport’.

This score was crucial because there was a passage of play of around seven minutes that resulted in a Pollard penalty. The game was tight and often when there is nothing in it, teams are more likely to play the percentages.

New Zealand did that after a Willie Le Roux break upfield saw South Africa in the red zone and Sam Whitelock, who had come on for the debutant James Broadhurst, played the percentages and went to spoil the ball. He got a yellow card for his troubles and New Zealand were in trouble.

The game was on a knife-edge at that moment and New Zealand were in danger of seeing the game run away from them. Lood de Jager came within a blade of grass of scoring a try and had that try occurred, I’m inclined to think the final result would’ve been different.

South Africa had an attacking scrum and a piece of pie was up for grabs. It was an All Play card and the expression was ‘Stoic resistance.’

The replacement prop, Vincent Koch, shouted out Stoical resistance and knocked on before the New Zealand pack shouted back Stoic resistance and they were able to clear the line and not concede points that would’ve made the game that much harder to turn around.

More good fortune followed for New Zealand as the referee ruled that competitive scrums could not take place as the established tighthead and loosehead props were off the field injured. Not only had Koch knocked on but he had gone off at the worst possible time with Jannie Du Plessis also off.

This is where the frustration in Pictionary comes out. Your team mates are on the right track but the artist starts banging the pen on the paper instead of clear thinking and drawing something else.

South Africa had to make that passage of play with a one-man advantage count but a combination of bad luck and perhaps a lack of adventure undid them. It’s easy to see why, with an extra man, South Africa took that approach. They came so despairingly close and not scoring made that last quarter that much harder to play.

New Zealand sensed that change in momentum and there was a lot more urgency in their play. Breaks started to come with Fekitoa making a break and Patrick Lambie putting in a great covering tackle. Then Brodie Retallick was held up and play returned for a New Zealand penalty.

Richie McCaw realised the game had swung his team’s way and chose to go for the corner. He landed on a piece of pie and it was an All Play card. The word was subterfuge.

The great thing about All Play is that your team doesn’t necessarily have to draw the winning drawing. You can feed off the other team’s answers in response to their drawing. Richie McCaw realised this and set up a pod at the back to look at South Africa’s drawing and listen in on their answers.

He heard a Bok player say sub and suddenly a sparkle in Codie Taylor’s eyes and a grin from Richie. The throw was perfectly timed and executed and Richie McCaw drove into the Springbok halfback and went over the line shouting ‘subterfuge.’

It was a killer blow even though there were five minutes left on the clock. The New Zealand players had their tails up and this was reflected in Patrick Lambie being held up in the tackle after the restart and an uncontested scrum gifting New Zealand ball.

Lima Sopoaga, who had a solid game with no real howlers and did his World Cup prospects no harm as opposed to Broadhurst, threw a wild pass that went into touch.

In a different part of the game, that mistake could’ve been costly but New Zealand won a scrum not long after that lineout and it was Lima Sopoaga that had the final say to kick a penalty over for a 27-20 win.

It was an enjoyable game and similar to the Springboks Wallabies match the previous weekend, both sides could take a lot of positives out of the match and both sides had areas on which they needed to work.

For New Zealand, Charles Piutau staked a claim with an excellent game on defence – ripping balls away at key moments – and attack. Sopoaga is not going to leap Daniel Carter or Beauden Barrett the super sub, but he did get vital experience of cauldron rugby and will be all the better for it should he need to come on as a replacement. His ability to challenge the line is what is required at this level and why he goes ahead of Colin Slade who only seems to be getting utility opportunities at the moment.

Liam Messam should be concerned as he had an indifferent game. He is fighting for a bench spot with Victor Vito who looked promising when he came on. I expect Steve Hansen to bring back Jerome Kaino and give Liam Messam a chance one of these Bledisloe matches to show he can add bench impact because Victor Vito clearly fits that bill. Where that leaves Sam Cane, who seems the only one short of a run at the moment, remains to be seen.

For the Springboks, there is certainly no need to panic. They need to assess who is their best possible bench because that appears to be hurting them at the moment.

Furthermore, they can start a game at a frenetic pace but they’re not scoring enough points to show for that dominance they can get at the breakdown. Similarly, in the second half, that inability to score sees them go into their shells as the second half progresses.

They have timing issues as well as converting opportunities into points. If they can sort that out, they will be a real handful for any opponent.

Part of that is rewarding these young players like de Jager, de Allende and Kriel. Unfortunately Reinach didn’t replicate his fellow rookies’ performance and halfback continues to be a problem to partner the playmaker Pollard.

Pictionary is a game of skill but it doesn’t need require skilful artists. It needs a good blend of simple plans executed well at pace and an ability to break the deadlock at key moments. That means riding your luck at times but, generally speaking, successful rugby and Pictionary teams are in tune with each other at key moments.

That was exactly what happened last Saturday. It’s a shame that you don’t have the drawings in front of you, as I do, because without them they don’t tell the whole picture.