Could Wasps' tactics be pushing Kurtley Beale to an early exit?

A Wasp not a Waratah, playing in the midlands of merry ol’ England rather than in the heart of Australia. How times have changed for Kurtley Beale.

Yet it is an arrangement hardly cast in stone – one year with an option to go back home in the second term if things don’t work out. So while Kurtley Beale has to prove his value to Wasps, the same is true the other way around.

Wasps, and by implication the rest of the English Premiership, have to prove that they provide an environment in which he feels comfortable and at home both on and off the field.

Beale has some natural friends from his homeland to ease the way forward. At the beginning of this season, Wasps recruited defence coach Phil Blake from their Midlands neighbour Leicester.

Blake has a solid New South Wales history. He cut his coaching teeth with the South Sydney Rabbitohs in the NRL before jumping the barricades to union, where he worked for both the Manly club and the Western Force and as defence coach and as skills coach for Robbie Deans’ Wallabies.

Blake has some interesting ideas on how to best utilise Beale’s talents defensively, ideas which do not agree at all with the policy espoused by Nathan Grey in either the Waratahs or Wallabies set-up.

Remember the radical re-arrangement of the pieces Grey likes to implement on defence? For most of 2016, their lineout defence has set up as follows:

Australia will make every effort they can to rush upfield as hard as they can for as long as they can and make decisive frontal tackles, led by their best tackler, Michael Hooper, in the 10 channel.

The open-side wing is always the same player whether it is at left or right-sided lineouts. Israel Folau will push up outside him to cover overlap plays, with Dane Haylett-Petty shifting over to fullback and Bernard Foley either dropping into his space in the backfield or remaining on the end of the line (depending on whether a kick or the pass is expected).

There is little doubt that Kurtley Beale would have started at number 12 against England in June but for his ill-timed knee injury suffered just before the tour began.

But Beale would not have defended at 12 in Grey’s scheme. With Rob Horne at that time manning the inside centre channel, he would have either been defending as the designated open-side wing or, more likely, dropping into blind-side wing with Haylett-Petty moving up into the Henry Speight/Quade Cooper role.

Beale would have been either a backfield defender or positioned on the very end of the line. In Wasps’ recent back-to-back double-header against the Pro 12 champions Connacht, Phil Blake has taken a different view of Beale’s talents. From set-piece, he has him defending as an orthodox 12, but with his speed as a spot-blitzer causing mayhem behind the advantage-line:

In the very first clip at 47:57 of the return fixture from a first phase lineout, he reads the wrap-around play off Bundee Aki early and “spots” the Connacht winger peeling to the open-side fully five metres behind the gain-line. The ball-rip in contact completes the sequence with a turnover.

In phase-play, Beale has been spot-blitzing out of what is known as the ‘transition zone’ on defence. The transition zone, the zone where the last forward defender connects with the first back, is a sensitive area on defence. The physical attributes of the two defenders are typically very different, with one much slower and more heavily-built than the other.

In a straightforward drift pattern, the forward can easily become ‘lost’ underneath the back on any wide attack and an inviting gap appear between them.

Phil Blake has been covering this potential weakness by having Beale rush up, cut off the wide attack and whenever possible, and force play back into the big forwards inside him.

Beale successfully cuts off the wide attack at 9:33 and 54:44 of the first game; at 49:07 in the second game, and 16:56, 17:16 and 54:44 of the first match, he forces the play back into the forward underneath him.

That player just happens to be Joe Launchbury, Wasps’ most effective forward defender in contact. On three occasions, Launchbury is there to profit from Beale’s great closing speed, at 49:10 and at 17:17 with a choke tackle and slow-down of offensive operations, while at 54:45 he is hovering, ready to pounce on the fumble Beale has created.

Was the experiment successful? Over the balance of two games, the answer is probably ‘yes’. In the first game in Coventry, Beale only completed five out of nine tackles, but forced two fumbles while receiving a yellow card for a head-high shot delivered at the end of the sequence at 17:25. In the return match in Ireland, he completed nine out of 11, with one more enforced turnover but two line or tackle breaks conceded.

Overall, it was only a 70% tackle completion rate but a risk which Blake would be happy to accept in return for the rewards – the turnovers, force-backs and disruptions.

Could this work for Australia? Possibly – though far more samples are needed. The thought of Beale’s closing speed forcing play back into the clutches of Michael Hooper, Lopeti Timani or Sean McMahon does have its attractions.

On the other hand, the dangers when the opponent keeps enough attacking depth and coordination to evade the Beale rush are significat (an example occurs at 50:14).

Moreover, it is already evident after two games that Beale will be exposed to far more physical wear and tear by the new positional requirements of playing on the front line at Wasps. In the English Premiership, the attrition rate on that line is high. Not a Verdun or Passchendaele exactly, but quite traumatic enough in sporting terms to make you think twice about your future.

The lack of positional flexibility and sheer variety (compared to what Beale was encouraged to do at the ‘Tahs) could persuade him not to take up the option of a second year at Coventry. On offence, Beale only kicked the ball twice over the two games against Connacht – compare this to the pivotal kicking role he enjoyed in New South Wales, which I examined here.

Too many physical chores and not enough ‘spice’ may not a happy Kurtley make. He was, after all, originally recruited to take the place of All Black Charles Piutau, who plays exclusively in the back three. Whether Beale ever will get that opportunity, with or without the number 12 on his back, remains a doubt.

His attacking game on the line at least, is in excellent fettle:

The ability to explode from a standing start and offload (63:12) or spin through contact to score (6:49), to create space and exploitable width off his ‘wrong side’ – on left-to-right movements (4:43, 12:18 and 61:41), to support the ball-carrier and place the ball quickly and accurately in contact (61:45 and 62:00), and the quick hands in the teeth of a desperate goal-line defence (72:15), are all still there.

The situation with Kurtley Beale in England is volatile rather than settled. If Wasps are not able to give him the variety and stimulus he needs as a player and exploit all his considerable gifts, and his exposure to the physical chores of the game becomes excessive, the odds on a return home only one year into his contract will shorten dramatically.

And when he does come back home, he will be returning with some new ideas on how he can be deployed defensively, both for the Waratahs and, potentially, for the Wallabies.