Balancing act: Finding the right balance in units across the park

Way back in 2016 I wrote this article on balance in the back row.

Recent commentary, especially about the balance or lack thereof in the current All Blacks team, has led me to believe it’s time to revisit the idea of balance, not just in the back row but across the park and how there seems to have been a recent trend away from neatly balanced rugby sides.

I’ll also have a look at the All Blacks’ side that played in the second Bledisloe match and highlight where balance is or isn’t being achieved.

What is balance in team selection?
It’s sort of universally accepted that within any unit on the rugby field there is an array of skills or playing styles that can be accomplished within that unit.

Generally speaking, balance is about trying to ensure complementary differences between players within a unit to achieve the widest variety of strengths and the smallest number of weaknesses. A few good but by no means exhaustive examples are as follows.

A balanced second row is normally thought to consist of a tighthead and loosehead second-row pairing. The tighthead second row is normally shorter and more physically dominant, provides more oomph at scrum time and is an enforcer on the field, making fewer higher impact plays. The loosehead lock is often taller and leaner, a dominant lineout target and an absolute workhorse at both tackle and ruck.

(Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

A balanced midfield should combine a ball player with a ball runner. The ball player normally has good feet, excellent rugby nous, is a textbook tackler and has a significant distribution game to take pressure of their first five. The ball runner should be big, fast, and able to run good lines, bust tackles and make big tackles themselves.

A balanced back three will normally have a strike winger, who is very fast and/or very explosive and difficult to tackle one-on-one.

Then there will be a skills winger who often has experience playing fullback and is safe under the high ball, has technically excellent positioning on defence, has a reliable kicking game and is secure on the carry even in the wide channels while still being quick enough to exploit space.

Finally, they have a fullback who is a high-ball master extraordinaire, has an excellent read of the game and knows when to add themselves to the back line. A booming clearance punt is often required as well.

How balance plays out in selection
For the above units and their balance characteristics I’ve been pretty uncontroversial, with what some would consider to be fairly classical types of balance. Most knowledgeable rugby fans would broadly agree that these units exist and the balance characteristics I have offered are pretty much staples.

However they are by no means prescriptive. Some teams will sacrifice a tall loosehead lock for a player more similar to the tighthead role because they are getting great lineout production from their back row. Other teams will go with two strike wingers, relying on their first five to perform some of the role of the skills winger.

But this selection decision making, obviously informed by the available cattle, is still responding to balance. I can sacrifice something here, because I am already going to get it over there and I like what this other player offers more. Balance plays out not only within individual units on the field but across the whole team.

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

This more holistic approach is definitely on the rise in the top rugby teams. Where once jackaling was considered a primary role of the openside flanker, now many teams prefer a more impactful defender in that role, often relying on a hooker or lock to bring that on-the-ball presence.

South Africa did not have a single well-established pilferer across their back row in the third Lions Test this year but managed nine across the team. So, while the Boks’ back row comes across as maybe a little imbalanced in their deck work, by balancing out that weakness with other units, the back row is free to be stacked with three monster defenders.

The Bledisloe All Blacks, a case study in questions of balance
Lots of talk in the last two weeks from All Blacks fans has been regarding an unbalanced feel to the current side. This is largely due to the lack of balance within units on the field.

The back row for example has an unbalanced feel about it. In Akira Ioane, Dalton Papalii and Ardie Savea you have three very untraditional players in their respective roles.

Savea, a shorter link player with decent on-deck production and a well known leg-drive game, is playing at eight, a role normally performed by a taller, rangier player with more focus at lineout and wider play.

At six you have Ioane, a loose-playing crash-and-bash merchant, playing in what is normally the for the All Blacks a tighter, more work-rate-heavy position.

Finally at openside flanker you have a tackling machine in a role usually reserved for a link-man jackaler. On face value it looks all out of whack but really the balance among those three is pretty good.

There’s a lot of work rate in Papalii on both sides of the ball and he links well. Savea is decent on the deck and can make good metres in the tight-loose. Ioane has the capacity to crush the opposition in tackles and is an attacking threat in the wide channels.

Sure, the positions seem odd to the average All Blacks fan, but most of what you want in a back row is in there somewhere. There’s a bit missing in the lineout but it seems Ioane is being pushed more into that area. So balance is achieved, even if it requires some unusual positioning.

The All Blacks’ back line in contrast shows the difference in results greater balance can achieve. In Bledisloe 1, the All Blacks’ back line read:
10. Richie Mo’unga
11. Rieko Ioane
12. David Havili
13. Anton Lienert-Brown
14. Sevu Reece
15. Damian McKenzie

(Photo by Dianne Manson/Getty Images)

Now if we look at the two units encapsulated here – midfield and back three – and we use the example of classical balance I highlighted earlier, it’s fairly easy to see how unbalanced this back line appears to be.

In the centres there are no ball runners but rather two ball players. Lienert-Brown and Havili are both footwork-oriented players with good distribution games. This leads to some laterality in the attack but also creates a lot of threat from static situations. They can pass or dance their way to something a more direct player can’t. The trouble arises with the back-three selection.

Without a ball runner in the midfield, I would expect the back three is selected to plug the hole. A high-work-rate power winger and a fast, direct fullback would probably do the trick.

Instead, the All Blacks select two speed-based strike wingers and an extremely lateral playmaking fullback. Rieko Ioane, despite his size and experience at centre, still has a relatively low work rate and prefers to use pace over power while both Reece and McKenzie rely almost exclusively on footwork.

This back three is in itself fairly unbalanced, with no safe skills-based winger and a serious lack of high-ball diffusion, and it does nothing to counter the imbalances in the midfield.

The result? A very lateral attack that often lacked penetration and relied on opposition mistakes and poor defensive reads to strike.

Compare this to the team selected a week later. Only one name is different, with Will Jordan coming in for Lienert-Brown, but suddenly back-line balance is restored.

Ioane plays the ball-running role in midfield and Will Jordan brings a straighter, more skills-based approach to the right wing.

This back line was more difficult to exploit aerially with two fullbacks in the back three and was offensively more penetrating with the defence having to worry not only about footwork but also direct pace in the centre channels.

One change and now both the midfield and back three look better balanced and, despite a very rocky start from McKenzie, a better result ensued.

Conclusion
Team balance is still a central pillar of team selection. While unit balance once held primacy, a more general team balance seems to the goal of modern head coaches and selectors.

That being said, as the varied fortunes of the two All Blacks Bledisloe back lines attest, sacrificing too much unit balance can affect how a larger part of the team is able to play and may expose weaknesses ready to be exploited by opposition teams.