Has the 'Pooper' run its course?

The breakdown is the single most important aspect of the modern game of rugby union.

In the good old days of the 1970s, you didn’t have to worry about the number of breakdowns. As a tight forward you knew there would be twice as many scrums and lineouts as there were rucks.

Now the situation has turned on its head, and there is an average of anywhere between 150-200 breakdowns per game, compared to approximately 40 set-pieces. That’s a ratio of four or even five to one.

Many of the law-tinkerings – or should I say “improvements in legislation” – are therefore targeted at this area. In New Zealand’s NPC competition, the latest batch are currently being implemented, as detailed here.

New Zealand is often at the sharp end of law changes, and those changes always suit the way their teams want to play the game. However, it also has to be said that the changes they propose usually quicken the game up and make it a more enjoyable spectacle.

In this case, the aim of the tinkering at ruck-time is to remove the tackler’s ability to fold down over the ball and ‘jackal’ for it on the deck (15.1). In addition, the first arriving cleanout player for the attack can now form a breakdown (and therefore create an offside line) without being in contact with any defenders, as long as he is standing above the tackle ball (16.1 and 16.2).

If they are ratified at the top end of the game – and the law changes would not be introduced until 2018, even if they are agreed by all the relevant parties – it raises interesting questions for the future of back-row selection in particular. The day of the jackal may be over.

This is of course a concrete issue for an Australian coaching group which has pinned its colours so firmly to the mast with the selection of two open-side flankers (Michael Hooper and David Pocock) in the ‘Pooper’ back-row.

Let’s take a look at how the ‘Pooper’ has evolved under the current laws through matches from three distinct phases of the Michael Cheika era: the England group game from the World Cup in 2015, the first Test against the same opponents this June, and most recently, the first game of the current Rugby Championship in Sydney against New Zealand.

The basic idea is to create more problems than the opponent can handle comfortably at the breakdown and stop attacking play at source. So the Australian coaches have constructed a defensive pattern where they can concentrate Hooper and Pocock in the same area close to contact situations. From scrum, when they are defending side-by-side in the back-row. From lineout, where Hooper is stationed in the 10 channel with Pocock next door to him:

And even from restarts, where they can chase the kick-off as a pair:

Hooper and Pocock defending together close to the attacking flow means only one thing – trouble for the opponent, as their turnover stats from the three games shows:

Considered in isolation, the takeaway stats from all three games are outstanding. Most international sides will aim to secure at least 95 per cent of their own breakdown ball, so to turn over a 9 per cent average defensively is well ahead of the curve. Pocock and Hooper participated in 18 out of the Wallabies’ 21 turnovers, so the threat at the breakdown is based solidly around their activity.

At the same time, the penalty count against Australia has mounted since last November, with two penalties against at the World Cup becoming three at Brisbane and five at Sydney. In both of the last two games, Australia received a final warning for repeated infringements at the breakdown and the ratio of steals to penalties fell from over 3:1 at Twickenham, to 2:1 (Sydney) and just over 1:1 (Brisbane).

Therefore there is clear sense that opponents have begun to adapt to the double threat at the breakdown and implement their counter-measures over time.

In the World Cup game against England, Australia had their own way completely in this department of the game:

As these clips demonstrate, the system is at its most efficient when someone else makes the tackle and Pocock moves in for the kill on the deck as the second man. Typically that tackler will be Hooper:

But in the clips it is also Kane Douglas at 9:30 and 30:10, Matt Giteau at 23:30 and 61:00, and Rob Simmons at 44:07. When the jackal doubles as the primary tackler, there is the complicating factor of adequate release of the tackled player – a refereeing grey area.

The reel also illustrates the Wallabies’ eagerness to commit in numbers to a potentially winning breakdown. At 14:34 there are four men in after pressure by Adam Ashley-Cooper on the second pass, at 61:04 three defenders commit after Giteau makes the initial tackle, at 78:40 five players drive in successively to a tackle near the sideline.

Eight months later, England showed signs of adjusting to the Pooper threat under a new coach in Eddie Jones:

The threat of Pocock to steal or disrupt ball as the second man in is repeated from Twickenham in four instances (17:37, 23:50, 25:40 and 40:58). However there is a clear change from the World Cup in terms of two things:
1. Refereeing attitude to Australia’s aggression at the breakdown, and
2. Questionable Wallaby judgement calls in committing numbers to the tackle area.

In the longer sequence (19:05-19:30), the negative trend is very evident. At the first ruck (19:11), Greg Holmes makes the tackle and three Wallabies (Hooper, Pocock and Scott Fardy) automatically compete despite the fact that #4 Maro Itoje is already on top of the ball-carrier (Chris Robshaw) and providing a layer of protection.

When the shot widens out at 19:14, there are ten Wallaby defenders condensed between the far 15m line and touch against eight English players, including a 5-3 defensive ‘overlap’ on the short-side! The last Australian defender to the open-side (Rob Horne) is roughly level with the far post.

Even though England win slow ball from the ruck, there is a clear potential overlap if the ball can go beyond Billy Vunipola to where #12 Luther Burrell and Marland Yarde (out of shot) have half the width of the field in which to beat the sole remaining defender, Israel Folau (19:19).

Australia then commit three players to the next breakdown (a successful steal by Nick Phipps), and another two after Mako Vunipola recovers the ball for England at 19:28. The sequence ends with a penalty goal for England underneath the Wallaby posts after Fardy fails to roll away from the tackle.

The rolling issue of defensive discipline at the tackle area resurfaces at 26:07, with Hooper going around the corner of the ruck to play the ball from the wrong side, and M.Poite finally losing patience and issuing his general warning at 29:05 – less than half an hour into the match. Because of the Wallabies’ habit of over-competition at the breakdown, Poite sees David Pocock’s offence but not Chris Robshaw’s (side entry on the cleanout).

The same refereeing trend was repeated in the match at Sydney:

At 28:18, Pocock is caught in an identical position to the Robshaw instance, in the same minute of the match. He is having a second bite at the ball after being temporarily removed by the cleanout.

After awarding the penalty, referee Jaco Peyper explains the decision which was implicit in Romain Poite’s general warning in Brisbane: “Can I explain? You’re going hard at every breakdown, and you have to accept that you are going to pay some tax for that…”

In other words, the Wallabies’ policy of over-competition at the defensive breakdown is attracting referee’s tax – penalties with the further potential for yellow cards. It may yet also cost Stephen Moore the Australian captaincy, because it is this area above all else which is eroding his ability to hold a productive conversation with the referee. He has become the scapegoat for the Wallabies’ lack of discipline at the ruck.

At Test level, referees want to forge a reputation for being a part of games that live long in the memory for the positive qualities of play. Nigel Owens has made a living, and a very good one, out of that.

They hate to become known as penalty-prone because it lowers their marketplace value. The Wallabies’ defensive policy at the breakdown has clearly been noted on the ref’s circuit, it has ‘broken down’ their captain’s sympathetic rapport with the official, and it runs contrary to the flow of future law changes in that area.

Against New Zealand in Sydney, it was also picked apart quite ruthlessly on the field. The tendency to over-commit numbers to contact situations was exploited to the full, and it became steadily obvious that the All Blacks had a clear plan to manipulate the ‘Pooper’ combination to their advantage.

The following snapshots illustrate one of the main roots of the problems Australia experienced in Sydney:

There are four Wallabies committed to the breakdown with the two locks Douglas and Simmons at guard and Will Genia behind them in the boot-space – giving a total of seven players in the short area of roughly nine square metres. This in turns narrows the Wallaby defensive line (which is naturally ‘eyes in’ anyway) and gives the All Blacks the width of the field at 5:28, the position from which they scored their first try of the game.

Different versions of this scenario occurred time and again throughout the match. In the first sequence from the reel (12:11-12:33), the Wallabies attack the contact area after the second pass is made, with four players – Matt Toomua, Tevita Kuridrani, Adam Ashley-Cooper and David Pocock. When they get the initial disruption, with Pocock pinching the ball and Toomua kicking it through at 12:20, they follow by committing no less than five players to the next tackle point (Ashley-Cooper from the wrong side, Kuridrani, Simmons, Sio and Douglas) at 12:28.

This gives them a mirror image of the shortened defensive line for the Crotty try, but on this occasion Brodie Retallick chooses to take the ball up instead of using the 4-2 overlap outside him. The play still ends in a penalty to New Zealand after another breakdown flood by three Wallaby players.

Although the fourth try had a large measure of bad luck, it still derived from the same basic scenario, with three Wallabies committing to the kick-chase on Israel Dagg, and both locks plus Will Genia in the same 9 square metre ‘box’ around the ball. When Aaron Smith gets an unexpected tip on the feed by Pocock at 38:00, there is the same shortened defensive line, with four Wallabies still fixed in the backfield.

The planning for Hooper and Pocock looks to be based on making one the tackler in early-phase situations, then splitting them to opposite sides of the field in subsequent play. This approach recognises that ‘Pooper’ is at its best when the two defenders are allowed to play in tandem.

From lineout the All Blacks targeted Pocock in midfield at first phase, before shifting the ball wide against an (already) undermanned Australian defensive line, in order to pull Hooper out towards the far sideline:

At 25:46 Hooper is still in the far 15m channel and Australia have the same defensive ‘look’ they had against England at Brisbane, with 14 players condensed into one-half of the field. Unlike England, the All Blacks are able to exploit the shortened line with a dexterous wrap-around between Barrett and Kieran Read.

There are still three unmarked New Zealand attackers wide of Barrett when he runs through the gap between Pocock and Ashley-Cooper to score.

On the final sequence from the reel, Barrett picks out Pocock on the first phase of a kick return and pins him in the tackle at 40:25. With Pocock and Hooper split to opposite sides, the All Blacks shift the ball wide around the blitz of Hooper at 40:35. On this occasion, the All Blacks fail to keep ‘Pooper’ split for long enough. As soon as the duo reunites in the same defensive zone at 40:51, (inevitably) it picks the ball off at the breakdown!

Summary
At first glance, it appears that both the law-makers (via the new set of rules being trialled at the breakdown in NPC) and the law-givers (the referees) are currently working against the interests of the ‘Pooper’ back-row combination. The lawmakers clearly want a game with less defensive interference in contact in future, the refs are clamping down on over-competition under the existing rules right now.

On closer investigation, it is hard to blame Michael Hooper or David Pocock (or the combination of both in the same back-row) for the breakdown floods that are such a big plank in Australia’s current defensive policy. Three or even four or five man contests are the norm, and the lack of numbers and compressed line spacings have severe repercussions on the Wallabies’ ability to defend when they cannot stop the play at source.

At present, Australia’s defence has echoes of the Texas hold ’em poker player who goes ‘ALL IN’ every five or six hands. Sooner or later, someone will call your bluff and take all your money.

If Australia can pick their moments to up the stakes – perhaps limiting their counter-attacking ventures to times when two of their top jackaling group of Pocock, Hooper, Fardy and Ashley-Cooper are on the ball – they would become more efficient in the on-ball/line numbers balance, and start getting on the right side of referees once more. It is their choice, and one which may have consequences in the future of the game up until 2018.