Coach’s Corner Issue 4: What now for Warren Gatland?

One of the most fascinating but ambiguous sights of the last Six Nations weekend was the shot of Warren Gatland sitting all alone in the stands – first at Twickenham on Saturday for England versus France, then the following afternoon in Edinburgh for the Scotland-Ireland encounter.

On the same weekend, Gatland’s Chiefs were being routed by 39 points to 17 by the Crusaders. It was the side’s 11th consecutive loss, and you have to go all the way back to the 2013 Highlanders to unearth a similar losing run by a Kiwi Super Rugby franchise.

Unsurprisingly, the questions have been piling up over the last few weeks, in one form or another.

KP started with an easy one.

“Any chance of the Crusaders losing a game this season? If so, who’s the most likely to topple them?”

Certainly not the Chiefs. The Blues are closest.

A couple of weeks ago, JD Kiwi asked, “It’s one thing the NSW kids losing all the time, but a team like the Chiefs with senior All Blacks that keeps on collapsing, having played some excellent rugby, is another matter entirely. What steps would you take to bring back a winning mindset?”

This week, Spew_81 shifted the focus to Chiefs fullback Damian McKenzie.

“Seeing Damian McKenzie playing halfback for the Chiefs versus Crusaders made me wonder if his best position at international level might be halfback rather than 15, 14 or 10? Playing at 15 or 14, his relative lack of size and height puts him behind the eight-ball as he is less likely to make a dominant tackle, break or bend the line, and take a high ball on offence or defence.”

The Chiefs are not getting the best out of either McKenzie or Gatland, in the currently uneasy set of circumstances. We’ll leave Gats to the end of the question and begin with McKenzie.

McKenzie did enough against the Crusaders to demonstrate that he is as dangerous as ever when he gets the ball:

He scored the Chiefs’ first try, and made the other with a subtle pass across his body from first receiver (at 5:52 on the above highlights reel).

But he does not get the ball nearly enough, and he doesn’t get it in the right places. Up until the 56th minute, when the starting first five-eighth, Bryn Gatland, went off and McKenzie moved into the ten role, D-Mac had only touched the ball twice at first receiver. At that stage of the game, he had cleaned out at the ruck more times (five) than he had made the play on attack.

Those touches were confined to 15 metres of short-side play:

McKenzie’s signature long, sweeping runs work best in a big openside of the field – and when he is getting ten or more touches at first receiver – not a skinny narrow side.

Warren Gatland tended to opt for a solid navigator at number ten with Wales (typically Dan Biggar), and he did not pick a second playmaker at either 12 or 15. The Chiefs in Super Rugby are a very different kettle of fish to Wales in the Six Nations, and something has clearly been lost in translation.

So, what is Damian McKenzie’s best position? Could it be scrumhalf, as Spew_81 suggests?

I doubt it. There would have to be a will to shift McKenzie to the spot by Chiefs coaches, national coaches, and not least by the player himself. McKenzie would have to want to make this U-turn midway through his career at the age of 25.

He is best placed at first five-eighth. In the backfield as a fullback or wing, he can be exploited by the better kickers from both ten – such as Richie Mo’unga over the weekend:

And nine, in this case Nic White during last year’s Bledisloe Cup opener:

McKenzie also tends to over-read defensive situations from fullback. This example comes from the start of a game against England in 2018:

McKenzie reads the attack going to the England left-hand side, but it comes back to an unmarked Chris Ashton on the right.

The Crusaders also exploited this tendency in their game against the Chiefs:

McKenzie reads the attack going out towards the Crusaders right before Mo’unga has ever shown his hand:

The backfield is empty when Mo’unga picks the inside pass to fullback Will Jordan out of his hat.

This excellent use of the inside pass connects with another question from last week by Bentnuc.

“Can you do some analysis on the inside pass please? The flick to Tom Banks from Ryan Lonergan was a beauty. It is something that Australian rugby does better than most but I would still love to see even more of it. Quade Cooper was always at his best with Digby Ioane off his inside shoulder. The Waratahs have even put on some good plays to Jack Maddocks with it too.”

Mo’unga encouraged defensive flow out to his right by stepping in that direction first. The Jack Maddocks example to which Bentnuc refers is probably this one:

You do something to pull the defenders out of the hole that you want to exploit with the in-pass, then it works like a charm.

Back to the huge shadow hanging over this entire scenario, that of Chiefs and British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland.

“Do you think, as I do, that Warren Gatland selected his team weeks if not months ago already, making whatever happens in the competition pretty irrelevant – or is he using the Six Nations as a trial for his selections?” asked Just Nuisance.

There have to be questions raised about Gatland’s judgment in taking on a Super Rugby head-coaching role when he was already committed to the Lions tour of South Africa. Neither the Chiefs nor Gatland’s reputation as a coach have benefited from him keeping a foot in two hemispheres.

If he still has an ambition to coach the All Blacks, the awkward situation he has created will not further that, either.

If the Lions tour goes ahead, the squad is likely to have a core of Welsh players who Gatland knows from his time in the country. That core may now be in the majority given Wales’ success at the 2021 Six Nations.

Warren Gatland. (Photo by Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)

There was also a lot of consternation about the Force’s inability to put the Rebels away from a position deep within the red zone (the Melbourne 22m area), with a one-man advantage at the end of the game.

Perthstayer asked, “For the second game in a row, the Force pummelled the try line with pick-and-gos around the side of the ruck but never succeeded. Respect has to be given to the opposition but rarely are we sucking enough of them in to generate overlaps out wide.”

Piru added, “I think with the new law letting the defence off the hook with a drop-out, rather than a five-metre scrum after being held up, this is an out-dated tactic. We need to start giving the ball to the backs when camped on the line.”

So, what should the attack do when they get close to the opposition goal-line? Keep the ball tight, or wait for the right moment to shift the point of attack wide?

The acknowledged kings of red zone rugby in Europe are the Exeter Chiefs. When the Chiefs have a penalty starter in between the 15m lines, they do not kick for touch or call a scrum as Ian Prior did in the 77th minute of the Force-Rebels game.

They take a tapped penalty, with hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie invariably getting within a metre of the goal-line on the initial carry:

On second phase, they show excellent technique, with the carrier taking the ball to the outside shoulder before being hammered over the line by his support on that side. There is no daylight between the two attackers as they approach the whitewash:

I wrote a longer read on the topic on the Rugby Site.

Compare that with the Force version:

The first run by Fergus Lee-Warner achieves the desired result, the second does not:

There is clear daylight for the Rebels no.21 to burst through the seam between the two attackers and create a disconnect which leads to one of two game-winning turnovers.

The other derives from Prior’s mistake in calling for a scrum, rather than take a tapped penalty.

Machooka posed the question, “If I’ve got this right, [the stat] was about which team had the best points average score whence in the opposition’s 22 and had taken advantage of this territorial position. So, if so a stat, how long has it been so?”

‘Red-zone conversion’ has been a key metric for several years. On the eve of last season’s English Premiership final between Exeter and Wasps, the finalists were ranked number one and number two in the stat.

Exeter averaged 27.3 points from their 13.1 entries into the 22, for a red zone efficiency rating of 2.08 points per entry. Wasps averaged 26.4 points from their 12.9 entries for an efficiency rating of 2.05. Exeter won by a whisker, 19 points to 13.

RahRah asked, “As a perennially frustrated Force fan, where do you see them going wrong, what are their strengths that could be enhanced and played to and what are their weaknesses that need to be eradicated?”

The Force are building up their roster of playing talent, and at present they have more of it up front than they do in the backline. Jake Ball and Izack Rodda will improve their tight five further. Their forwards will keep the majority of games close, but they still need more cutting edge behind to give them elbow room on the scoreboard. Damian McKenzie would help enormously!

Ian Prior. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

A couple of weeks ago, Peter K asked, “I am interested in the strategic counter, not tactical, to rush defence. First, is there a pod system (1-3-3-1, 1-3-2-2, 2-4-2 etc) that is the most effective?”

The pod systems with four groups of forwards, rather than three, have all evolved to counter defences with greater line-speed. When New Zealand dominated the world from 2005 to 2018 (with some small windows of exception), they did so with their forwards divided into three groups (with Richie McCaw usually floating as an extra link player between pods).

If you take a look at the last minute and a half of the 2013 All Blacks game against Ireland, the Kiwis are connecting those groups of forwards smoothly with two passes or more. Because the line-speed by Ireland is moderate, they are defending passively and unable to disrupt the passing lanes.

The increase of defensive line-speed since then has been quite dramatic, and it has resulted in attacking teams looking for more systems with forwards on a one-pass option. Now even the 1-3-3-1 is a little outdated, with teams looking to split their forwards in even more flexible formations to keep the defence honest.

Sam Cane with some fellow All Black forwards in tow. (Photo by Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images)

Making Numbers asked, “I appreciated the match-up between the Reds and Brumbies centres, as I believe these four individuals will be strongly competing for the yellow 12 and 13 jumpers for the next four years.

“My question is, does Hunter Paisami have the potential of being the complete package at 12?”

Dave Rennie and Scott Wisemantel have come out and said that they believe Hunter Paisami will become a true triple-threat player with a fully developed kicking game at number 12. They also backed that judgment last season after Matt To’omua was injured by selecting the Red at 12.

I am yet to be fully convinced. It is by no means a given that Jim McKay will persist with Paisami and Petaia in the Queensland centres if he feels Hamish Stewart brings better balance to the backline as a whole. That would mean Paisami shifting to 13, and Petaia dropping into the back three.

It is also possible that others may prove more fit for purpose than Paisami in that role: Noah Lolesio may prove to be better as a 12 than 10 at the higher level, Irae Simone may develop faster than Paisami. The jury is still out.

(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Many thanks to all who contributed a question this week. If I don’t answer at once, do not despair. Sometimes it is just as matter of collecting enough queries in and around the same topic before answering them!