Super Rugby pre-season update: Defence still wins games

From the very moment William Webb Ellis picked up the ball at the Rugby School and ran with it – significant doubt over the accuracy of that legend notwithstanding – the ability to stop the other team’s attack with your defence has remained the most important aspect of rugby.

The first weekend in February is probably a touch early to start raising red flags about defensive errors costing teams championships, but it’s certainly the right time of year to identify issues before they snowball.

And after all, that’s why we play trial games.

Over in Wagga Wagga on the weekend for the Brumbies versus Waratahs, both teams would have taken plenty of positives out of the match. Yet it was also fairly obvious that both teams have plenty of work to do around their defence between now and Round 1.

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It’s probably too soon to draw any major conclusions about likely playing style for 2016 from the match, though it’s certainly clear that set piece remains a focus for the Brumbies, as does offloads and second-phase play for the Waratahs.

And it’s also clear that the new interpretations around the way mauls are formed from the lineout is going to take as much time for the referees to master as it is the players. Certainly, the line between legally moving the ball from ripper to receiver and perceived obstruction of defenders is going to be a blurry one.

For the first 50 minutes in Wagga, both sides showed clear attacking intent and not a lot of kicking, but again, that’s what you might expect in the first playing minutes following a long off-season for most of the personnel involved.

In losing Nic White and Jesse Mogg to France, the Brumbies are now lacking some significant length in their kicking arsenal. That undoubtedly played a role in the way they approached their first trial of the year, but it will be interesting to see how this pans out for their attacking plans in 2016.

It’s going to be difficult to play a territory game if you can’t kick out of your own half.

They did, however, establish scrum dominance from the outset and this continued until the point in the game when both third-option front rows were on, and were found to be pretty similar in scrummaging ability.

On this viewing, tighthead recruit Angus Ta’avao already shapes as the man to build the Waratahs’ scrum around.

Where the defence angle comes back into play is at the respective end of the match in which both teams were guilty of dropping off tackles after the first contact.

For the Tahs, this was more prominent in the first half, while the Brumbies spent most of the last quarter defending – or not defending as it turned out. They shelled two converted tries in the last 13 or so minutes to give up a ten-point lead and lose the game by four.

Both sides wanted to take the ball to the line, which was encouraging.

Young Brumbies and former Australian Schoolboys inside centre Jordan Jackson-Hope certainly had success in busting the first tackle more often than not, while former All Black Zac Guildford and the Waratahs’ latest code-hopper, winger Reece Robinson, had similar success trailing behind the initial point of contact and latching onto the popped pass.

Only their last pass options and decision-making let them down.

Where the Brumbies’ scrambling defence worked well in the first half, it fell away in the second, and quite alarmingly in the last ten minutes as the Tahs hoisted the wet sail.

It’s fair to say both will be looking to make significant improvements before the last weekend of February, and definitely before they meet again in Round 2.

The Reds and Rebels will also be working hard on the tackle bags and in opposed sessions over the next few weeks after both shelled try after try against the Blues and Crusaders, respectively. They only managed to cross the stripe once between them.

It was a harsh reality for the young Rebels side in Auckland, as the Blues shot out to a lead and then blew the inexperienced visitors away in the second half. A significant portion of the Melbourne side probably won’t see Super Rugby action in 2016, but it’s still a way off the ideal start to the season.

The Reds and Crusaders were separated by just three at half-time in ark-building weather at Ballymore but started shelling points once the bench was cleared in the second half. An increasingly porous defence certainly wasn’t helped by a couple of yellow cards to Chris Kuridrani and Curtis Browning in the second half.

Happily, from the short highlights clip I’ve seen, it does appear as though the Western Force have added some starch to their defence, with recruit Jono Lance shoring things up in the midfield in their useful win over a young Hurricanes side on the Central Coast last week.

Let’s just hope there’s more than just defence about the Force in 2016.

Let’s hope that the Australian Sevens side can learn the harsh defensive lessons that contributed to their last-minute Sydney Sevens final loss on Sunday night, too.

It was an otherwise cracking final, and a brilliant event over the weekend, but in time the Aussie boys will rue the defensive errors that led to most, if not all, of New Zealand’s long-range tries.

And when push came to shove, the Australians’ defensive line just offered far too much real estate out wide. The Kiwis, faster across the park man-for-man, didn’t need a second invitation, and Rieko Ioane sailed over in the corner untouched with yellow jerseys in his wake.

It has to be the simple lesson from the weekend. Defence will be the difference between championship contention, medal prospects, and participation certificates.

At least there is time to rectify the situations, though. Tackles missed in February won’t hurt near as much as tackles missed in July and August.