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Why the days of the galactico are over

23rd January, 2018
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Aled Davies of Scarlets leaps into the as he celebrates at the final whistle and his sides 30-27 victory with Will Boyde during the European Rugby Champions Cup match between Scarlets and RC Toulon at Parc y Scarlets on January 20, 2018 in Llanelli, Wales. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Expert
23rd January, 2018
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Here is the recipe for today. First, take your basic ingredients: Bismarck du Plessis, Marcel van der Merwe, Juandré Kruger and Duane Vermeulen from South Africa, and Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbé and Facundo Isa from Argentina.

When they are available, add Bismarck’s brother Jannie, Samu Manoa and a generous spoonful of Georgian international forwards for extra flavour.

Now add the icing on the cake: Ruan Pienaar, JP Pietersen, Frans Steyn and Jan Serfontein from the Republic, Aaron Cruden, Ma’a Nonu and Luke McAlister from New Zealand, and Jesse Mogg and Joe Tomane from Australia. Toss in Malakai Fekitoa and Bryan Habana if you have them in your cupboard.

To finish, add some garnish from the Pacific Islands in the back three – Nemani Nadolo, Timoci Nagusa, Josua Tuisova and Semi Radradra.

Bake for 35 minutes and there you have it – your first ‘galactico’ confection. You can expect instant success when you unveil it at your next dinner party!

What do all the above Southern Hemisphere ‘names’ have in common? They were all in action for their two French clubs, Montpellier and Toulon, in the European Rugby Champions Cup (ERCC) over the weekend.

The only hitch was the dinner party was not the unqualified celebration it was supposed to be. Montpellier were beaten by Leinster at home and are out of the competition; Toulon lost to the Scarlets in South West Wales and scraped through to the knockout stages as one of the best losers.

Aled Davies celebrates a victory

Aled Davies celebrates Scarlets’ win over Toulon. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

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With Montpellier currently sitting atop the French Top 14 league and Toulon having won three of the last five Champions Cup tournaments, it is unlikely that this is a conclusion their wealthy benefactors, Mourad Boudjellal and Mohed Altrad, would have envisaged when they ploughed their millions into the large-scale purchase of blue-chip Southern Hemisphere talent.

The foreign imports in the squads of their conquerors, Leinster and Scarlets, are far more modest. In West Wales, two ex-Bulls forwards whose services were no longer required in Super Rugby (Werner Kruger and David Bulbring), an ex-Canterbury winger (Johnny McNicholl) and an Australian sevens player (Paul Asquith). In Dublin, it was ex-Maori and Chiefs wingman James Lowe, second-string Hurricanes scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park, and Wallaby international Scott Fardy, although he wasn’t playing on Saturday.

Of those players, only McNicholl and Fardy are nailed-on starters when everyone is fit and firing at their regions.

When the English and French clubs held the (then) Heineken Cup to ransom back in 2014, it was with a view to furthering their own financial interests.

In England, Premiership Rugby cut its own TV deal with BT Sports valued at £152m to include both domestic and European competition, Ligue Nationale de Rugby sold the European rights to BeIn sport in France, and between them, the clubs leveraged the right to organise the tournament themselves. Previously it had been run by the home unions.

They also increased their own representation in the cup from 12 out of 24 to 12 out of 20, while reducing the number of qualifiers from the Celtic-based Pro 12 league.

The tournament designed by the privately-owned English and French clubs was in essence protectionist, and in its first three years it achieved its aim. Ever since the takeover in 2014-2015, all three Champions Cup finals have been contested by English and French teams loaded with imported talent.

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But now it appears the hypnotic Anglo-French cycle of buying success is in real danger of being broken. Three of the four group winners in this year’s tournament who have earned themselves home ties in the quarter-finals of the Cup are from the Pro 14. Only one English side scraped qualification via the back door, and that is the current champion Saracens.

All three of those Pro 14 teams are finding a way to win with an overwhelming base of home-grown talent and only minor additions from abroad.

Only four of Leinster’s 44-man senior squad are not currently IQPs (Ireland-qualified players – 91 per cent), and captain Isa Nacewa has been living and playing in Ireland for so long he qualifies as an honorary Irishman in any case (93 per cent).

At Scarlets, the ratio is 92 per cent, allowing for the return of international back-rower John Barclay to Scotland and second-rower Tadgh Beirne to Ireland at the start of next season. At Munster, all but one player in 44 are, or will become, an IQP (97 per cent).

The last great ‘galactico’ squad in Wales folded its hand when entrepreneur Mick Cuddy stepped down as managing director of Ospreys in 2012. The squad he built included Southern Hemisphere luminaries like Jerry Collins, Justin Marshall, Marty Holah, Filo Tiatia, Stefan Terblanche and George Stowers as well as Northern Hemisphere stalwarts like Irish winger Tommy Bowe and Nikki Walker of Scotland.

Since the collapse of private ownership in Wales, those household names have been replaced by ‘no names’ like Kieron Fonotia, Jeff Hassler and Dmitri Arhip, and all but six of the regular playing squad are Welsh-qualified. The drain on Southern Hemisphere manpower, at least among the Celtic nations, is somewhere between minimal and non-existent.

While Ireland offers a passable comparison to the super-efficient rugby ecosystem in New Zealand, Welsh rugby has been forced to go back to the future. It has experienced the traumatic failure of big private money and is now advancing beyond it. Its overseas choices tend to be few and far between and set well within tight budgetary constraints.

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Its selection of overseas coaches is shrewd. There are no big coaching galaticos in Wales, but there are coaches below that level, like Kiwi Wayne Pivac at Scarlets, who are conscious of their responsibility to return Welsh rugby to its roots.

Ironically, Pivac preceded a galactico coach at the Auckland Blues back in the late 1990s, one Graham Henry, and now he is one of the positive forces at work dragging Welsh rugby out of the power-oriented Warren Gatland era. Alongside his influential assistant Stephen Jones – surely a Wales coach of the future – Pivac is helping engineer a return to a skill-based movement game, complete with breathless offloads and counter-attack from deep positions.

It is here the fusion of the two hemispheres appears to work best – not in the acquisition of star coaches or players in whose abilities all your hopes and aspirations are invested (Graham Henry was hailed as the “Great Redeemer” when he arrived in Wales), but in the steady production and contracting of home-grown talent, alongside more humble background assistance from the men in the south.

Perhaps the best illustration of this fusion at work occurred in the Round 5 ERCC encounter between English giants Bath and the Scarlets. Bath, coached by galactico New Zealander Todd Blackadder and his assistant Tabai Matson, were comprehensively undone by 35 points to 17 by a Scarlets side forced into an awkward late reshuffle in four backline positions, and missing some of their biggest names – including McNicholl and Lions man-of-the-series Jonathan Davies.

This is our template – the sort of spectacular try of which Wales were capable in their glory days back in the 1970s

In the early 70s, Wales were based around a nucleus of players from Llanelli (the core club for Scarlets) and London Welsh, so it is entirely appropriate that the counter-attack should be started by a London Welshman, Gerald Davies, and finished by the Scarlets maestro, outside-half Phil Bennett.

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Now, let’s take a look at two of the Scarlets’ efforts a couple of weeks ago. Their first try came from a kick fielded by fullback Rhys Patchell back on their own 22-metre line.

The whole sequence lasted 50 seconds and featured 14 passes – including five by the forwards – and a massive seven offloads in contact. Here are some of the key moments:

Vision
The start point is a realisation – an understanding that attacking from your end in an unstructured situation presents a real opportunity, regardless of position on the field. As the camera shot widens, it is evident that there are only three Bath backs defending half the width of the field if the Scarlets can move the ball towards the far side within their own 22.

The defensive line-spacings are not easily manageable:

There is too much daylight between Jonathan Joseph and Ben Tapuai (gap one) and Tapuai and Matt Banahan (gap two), so Llanelli centre Hadleigh Parkes can pick his spot – eventually he chooses gap one. But it is the original offload in contact from the kick receiver Rhys Patchell and the long pass by second row David Bulbring which got the ball there.

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Continuity
In the second phase of the attack, forwards play an essential role in continuity. If they cannot pass and make decisions, the attack is dead in the water.

In the clip, the other Scarlets second-rower, Tadhg Beirne, is acting halfback at the base and it is number six Aaron Shingler who spots the gap before offloading from the ground to Beirne’s second-row partner Bulbring. As a result of their actions, the tempo of the counter remains high and Bath don’t have a chance to reset their defence.

Finish
When Parkes gets his hands out of the tackle for a second time in the movement, the player on the end of the offload is none other than Beirne himself.

With Bath fullback Anthony Watson in front of him, instead of blundering straight into contact in time-honoured second-row tradition, Beirne produces a step off his right foot which is worthy of an outside back to add the finishing touch.

It would be wrong to present this try as a one-off. The Scarlets maintained this level of attacking performance throughout the first half, even when they were down to 14 men on a yellow card.

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Their second try lasted for eleven phases and almost two minutes of possession with their number eight John Barclay off the field:

As in the first score, the Scarlets look for every opportunity to avoid allowing the defence to reset around the stopping point represented by a ruck, popping the ball off the deck and moving it on swiftly in contact.

The ball skills of their big men – Bulbring, Beirne and Shingler – are once again crucial to the tempo and continuity of play:

When the finish comes, it is delivered with precise handling performed right on the advantage line:

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If the key Llanelli passer (no.15 Patchell) cannot attract the circled defender (Aled Brew), there will be no overlap to exploit on the touchline:

Patchell has to fix Brew in place and take a step out of his ability to drift out, and he can only achieve his aim by taking the ball to the line and making the pass in the teeth of the defence:

Summary
The success of teams from the Pro 14 in the pool stages of the European Champions Cup has given the lie to the story that you need Southern Hemisphere stars (either coaching or playing) in order to succeed.

None of Leinster, Munster or the Scarlets have any big-name players or coaches from the Southern Hemisphere – except maybe for Scott Fardy, who was no longer wanted by the Wallabies.

The Southerners in those regions are either absorbed as project players or fit around a firm policy of home growth. They provide a different IP but are there as much to learn about the game as they are to teach it – just ask James Lowe!

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This model represents the true, sensible future for rugby union in terms of co-operation between the hemispheres.

It is no coincidence that the current Aviva Premiership champions, the Exeter Chiefs (the only club who are currently in the financial black in their league), also espouse a version of the same policy.

There were only two Southern Hemisphere players (Nic White and Lachie Turner) in their regular match-day 23 for ERCC pool games.

Organic, home-based growth is the only way forward for the game as a whole. Hopefully one of the Pro 14 sides will be able to nail that point to the mast indelibly by winning the whole thing when the tournament reaches its climax at the San Mames stadium in Bilbao on 11 May.

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