The battle of the benches won and lost, from Perth to Pretoria

A new word has entered the rugby vocabulary – the ‘closer’. The word derives from Major League Baseball in the United States, where a relief pitcher is brought on in the final inning to close out tight games.

In baseball, this player has become a specialist, only doing his work in the ninth inning and as often as not, only expected to pitch to three or four batters at most.

The word ‘closer’, rather than ‘replacement’ or ‘substitute’, indicates a change of attitude that is now spreading to rugby. (Click to Tweet)

The last eight players in the 23-man matchday squad are no longer viewed as just the next best players in the squad. They are people designed to do a specific job in the final 20 to 30 minutes of a match. They have to make a strong impact with the number and quality of their involvements, and they have to match up favourably with those who will be coming on at the same time on the opposite side of the field.

Finding the right players to fill these roles is becoming a selection process all on its own. In Wales in the early noughties, our statistical research showed that a player entering the fray in the latter part of a match was capable of contributing as much as 75 per cent of the production of a full-time starter in only one-third of the playing time.

As time moves on, I fully expect players to emerge who base their careers around their ability to ‘close’ effectively off the bench – and for those players to be valued as highly in the rugby marketplace as those who start the game.

The deterioration of Australia’s closing ability from Perth to Pretoria cost them the chance of achieving a historic win in South Africa’s capital city. This was particularly true in the tight five forwards, where Australia were suffering from injuries to Tatafu Polota-Nau and Alan Alaalatoa in the front row, and voluntarily replaced Rory Arnold with Kane Douglas at lock.

As a result, Stephen Moore had to see out the full 80 minutes at No.2, which was not ideal for a 33-year-old playing at altitude. Furthermore, neither Tom Robertson at tight-head nor Douglas at lock were able to offer the same impact as the men they replaced.

Let’s take a look at the raw stats from the two games. At Perth (with the two props entering at the 50th minute and Arnold and Polota-Nau five minutes later) tight five production off the bench (scrums excepted) looked like this:

Despite a complete lineout fail when Polota-Nau first came on and two penalties given away at the breakdown, these were impressive results. Many of the decisive involvements represented important ‘saves’ in defence and essential contributions on attack.

Fast forward to Pretoria, and the results were not of the same standard:

Douglas entered in the 45th minute, with the two props coming on ten minutes later and the replacement hooker (James Hanson) remaining unused. Again, scrums have been excepted from the stats.

It is clear that both the number and quality of involvements was significantly down on the game in Perth, while the number of negative outcomes rose proportionately. The contribution of the one common denominator between the two games – loosehead James Slipper – was halved outside the scrum and adversely affected by the absence of Polota-Nau within it.

So let’s see what the stats really mean in terms of ‘live’ action.

Scrum collapse
The most obvious point of difference was the set scrummage. Where the bench front-rowers at Perth at least maintained, if not improved the standard of the starters, at Pretoria the standard collapsed with the advent of the bench.
At Perth, the Wallabies achieved one penalty for and one penalty against, three stable platforms and one #9 breakout on own ball, and one pressure on the Springbok feed.

At Pretoria, the results were very different, with zero penalties for and three against, one turnover lost, and one Springbok pressure on own ball.

Here are some examples of what the differences looked like:

Up against Trevor Nyankane in Perth, and with the fresh power of Polota-Nau alongside him, Slipper is winning the engagement and advancing after the feed – notice how far Polota-Nau has promoted his shoulders at 58:43 and 71:23. By contrast, at Pretoria, he had real difficulty dealing with Julian Redelinghuys’ squat shape and the excellent inside technique I observed in this article.

Slipper is forced to hinge at the hips and give Wayne Barnes an easy refereeing ‘out’ with his backside left hanging in the air.

Tom Robertson fared no better on the other side. At 64:44 his opponent, Steven Kitshoff, gets an excellent long bind with his left arm, which means he can control the height of Robertson’s right shoulder and lever him upwards as the drive comes on.

There is a real question-mark over Robertson’s ability to play the tight-head position at international level. At 111kgs he is light for the position compared to, say, Alaalatoa’s 125kgs and Taniela Tupou’s 135kg frame. A move to loosehead or even hooker should be on the cards.

Fitting the pattern
The closers have to be able to fit into the team’s patterns with a minimum of fuss and no loss of effectiveness.

In the goal-line example from Perth at 61:10, Alaalatoa and Arnold are able to work the same tip-on pass routine at first receiver that creates a score for Scott Sio in the 13th minute in Pretoria. The cleanout from Alaalatoa and Polota-Nau over the top of Arnold’s carry is monstrous. It produces that gilt-edged two-to-three-second ruck delivery, which opens up the field for Bernard Foley to run through on the following phase. This was great decision-making and execution.

The later attacking sequence at Pretoria (61:25) is more problematic. Although it occurs only a couple of phases after a long line-break by Dane Haylett-Petty, attacking momentum is lost as soon as the pass is made to Kane Douglas at 61:26. The best option for Douglas as he receives the ball would be to drop the ball off to Israel Folau inside him (who is marked by tight forwards) and then look either to support or clean out over the top of him – one of Douglas’ fortes. Instead, Douglas takes ball into contact, which makes Folau the first cleanout player, one the weaker areas in his game.

The result is a slow and sticky six-second delivery which has a knock-on effect for the rest of the sequence. Although Michael Hooper is signalling for the ball at 61:35, Robertson does not consider the tip-on pass which would set Hooper up for an attack on the tender seam between the last forward defender (Kitshoff) and the first back (Lionel Mapoe).

The rest of the sequence sees the Springbok defence advancing to win collisions and contest the breakdown, until the inevitable turnover occurs at 62:15 via their captain, Adriaan Strauss. But the real damage was done a lot earlier, through the decision-making of Douglas and Robertson with ball in hand.

Positive and negative impacts
The closers have to make definite impacts on play and change outcomes by the power of their own efforts. This is what happened in Perth:

At least four of these events had a definite impact on the outcome of the game and could be classified as ‘saves’ (to adapt another baseball term).

• Alan Alaalatoa’s two tackles at 54:10 and 69:35. The first exposes the ball for a Michael Hooper turnover (and penalty), the second forces a fumble out of Pieter-Steph du Toit only five metres from the Australian goal-line.

• The goal-line driving lineout defence at 68:48 (Rory Arnold) and 72:22 (James Slipper). Arnold is the main maul defender at 68:55 as the drive concentrates. As the ball is transferred to the opposite side of the drive at 69:02 he makes a superbly-weighted decision to peel off and re-enter opposite the ball-carrier. It is his power and determination which brings a potential scoring drive to earth at 69:05 by splintering the blocking front formed by 17 Kitshoff and 19 Franco Mostert.
At 72:22 it is Slipper’s sack on du Toit which nullifies a temporary 4-on-2 Springbok advantage at the drive only 10 metres from the Australian goal-line. This defensive ‘win’ spawns another on the very next phase, with Michael Hooper and David Pocock combining to force the turnover and relieve the pressure.

• Polota-Nau and the use of power (59:42 and 65:58). Polota-Nau represents sheer dynamic power off the bench – whether it is in the scrum, at the cleanout (above at Perth 61:10), on the carry (59:42) or in the flying chase on defence after a restart (65:58), he is the prototypical bench ‘closer’.
Small individual failures like Douglas’ dropped pass at 57:44 with attackers available outside him, all mounted up:

Perhaps the perfect image for Australia’s bench failure in Pretoria was Douglas’ attempt to make an impact at a breakdown at 73:48:

Hooper’s positive ground-gaining run sets up Douglas for the cleanout, but in the event he bounces off Kitshoff in contact, leaving Francois Hougaard to pick up the turnover, and a penalty which saw Morne Steyn kick a goal to seal the win for the Springboks.

Summary
The ability of rugby’s closers to makes saves in defence, and positive impacts in attack and at set-piece has become a critical aspect of the game’s development.

Where Australia triumphed in this area at Perth winning the final half hour of the match 7-3, in Pretoria they lost it just as convincingly by 0-6.

Explosive power-players like Tatafu Polota-Nau and Taniela Tupou are well-suited to needs of a closer, as are other others like Rory Arnold with his unique selling points – his height and long levers.

Are the likes of Tom Robertson and Kane Douglas suited to bench duty? Maybe they are starters or they are nothing.

In future, this is likely to become an increasingly specialised department of the game, so we can expect newer generations of players to carve out niche careers for themselves in that final 20-30 minute period of the game.