Who were those masked men? How the Brumbies beat the Hurricanes

Even during the game between the Brumbies and the Hurricanes, I found myself asking, ‘how are the Brumbies getting dominated at the collisions yet winning on the scoreboard?’

The need for answers intensified after the game.

While only the Brumbies could tell us for sure what their plans were, I couldn’t resist having a dig to find an answer.

Of course, the usual suspects for a win by a smart rugby side that honours the fundamentals of the game were there – a solid set piece (well on top at lineout, especially), continuity with the ball in attack and a defence that at least bends without breaking.

What emerged to my observation as a real point of focus was the Brumbies’ kicking game. There also appears to have been a bold and well executed tactic in where and to whom they kicked.

The first thing that stood out was how few poor kicks there were. If you want the mindless punt down the middle of the field, you need to watch the other Australian sides – you can still really fill your boots on that specimen with them.

The Brumbies’ kicks found touch when that was on and the rest were always followed up by a clutch of defenders and many, if not most, were contested, or with the chaser arriving as the kick was taken.

However, if you watch the Brumbies for any length of time this is not really a surprise.

What was a surprise (in fact a huge surprise to me) was that the main target of the Brumbies’ kicks was none other than Jordie Barrett.

(Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

He is not an obvious target for kicks – at around 193 centimetres tall he is pretty comfortable with the high ball, he has a booming return kick and he can be a devastating runner.

This is hardly his first gig in the fullback position. I wouldn’t think of an All Black who has played for them at 15 as a potential weak link.

To illustrate the targeting, in the second half I counted five kicks that were sent his way (including one from kickoff) and another that found him and the terrifying Salesi Rayasi standing close.

By comparison, one kick went to Jackson Garden-Bachop at ten, two to Rayasi and two to Julian Savea.

In the first half, not one kick was sent to Rayasi and Savea and Jordie Barrett were the recipients of every kick (including the kickoffs/restarts).

Even more surprising was that Barrett gave up two turnovers off kicks in the second half (approximately 50 and 61 minutes respectively), at a crucial stage in the game when the Hurricanes were really looking to ramp up the pressure.

I struggled to see, despite repeated views, what he was doing wrong. One of the turnovers was a failure to bend low enough to clean up the ball on the ground, after it was spilled by Rayasi standing next to him – a problem any tall person can have, mind you.

The other thing I perceived was that the Brumbies appeared to target Barrett when he was carrying.

They did secure two turnovers off him and generated pressure and slow ball on other occasions. Something similar used to be done by New Zealand against the similarly-built, upright-running Israel Folau, but with Folau, part of the problem was a lack of background in and instincts for the game.

That is not the case with Barrett. I couldn’t see any obvious issues with his placing of the ball after tackling, or his choice of a short or long placement.

Barrett was twice stripped of the ball – once illegally by Andy Muirhead, as Barrett’s knee had touched the ground (one of the few calls that seemed to go the way of the visitors, although the red/yellow card decision struck me as being pretty generous), but it again suggests a possible targeting.

The only things I could really identify are that Barrett does tend to run very upright into contact and he did sometimes seem to be a little isolated from effective forward support. Because Barrett is often looking to offload there can be a little loss of ball security.

Perhaps another thing about the kicking to Barrett was that it tended to remove him from the game as a first or second receiver, given that he was being buried under rucks.

(Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

The dangers of not getting this tactic absolutely right were apparent on two occasions when Barrett broke tackles and set up support runners. He is a really fine player. This was a very audacious game plan that was carried out with precision.

The possibility that I am over-reading this has occurred to me. For example, most kicks are likely to be fielded by the back three – that is the nature of the game.

However, re-watching the game, I found it hard to believe that a well prepared side like the Brumbies merely found Barrett consistently by chance, kicked well away from Rayasi by luck and in the first half accidentally targeted every kickoff at Julian Savea, bar one that went to Barrett.

Some other factors in the game that deserve attention and could be articles in themselves include the defensive excellence of the Brumbies’ midfield. If you get a chance, watch the defensive organising they do.

Midfield defence is about a lot more than big hits and getting the moment right to shoot up in defence. The discipline in defence to soak rather than try to match power for power and to be very judicious in terms of when to contest on the ground also caught my eye.

The narrow patterns in attack were also very apparent – almost everything went to the second receiver off Nic White and there were quite a lot of angles taken back into the ruck area.

It really wasn’t until the 73rd minute that there was a series of wide passes at long distance to the try line.

This was not and is not the Hurricanes of their halcyon days around 2016-19. However, the Brumbies would also want to be careful about playing a carbon copy of this game if they met again. 

(Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

Barrett is a top player who likely won’t be caught out again in the same way and the margin between feeding a star player what he needs to bust a game open and closing him down is very fine.

One of the pleasing things about watching most New Zealand sides is that if they don’t adapt during a game (which they commonly do), they will have by the time you next meet.

Space doesn’t permit a discussion of the depth issue in New Zealand at present.

All I will say here is that 20 years of losing swathes of players in the tier just below regular All Blacks and the relative decline in recent years of the under-20s sides seem to be bringing New Zealand back to the field.

I don’t see Australian players as having made up a lot of ground, qualitatively.

As I noted when I wrote my heretical text on the Crusaders recently, the incredible New Zealand production line of talent doesn’t really look like it is collapsing and it has a knack of turning out players who seem to come from nowhere to Test standard.

It is the great rugby nation and there is more depth and breadth of knowledge and love for the game per person there than anywhere else.

However, at the moment there are more players than I can recall for a long time who are not clearly better than their Australian counterparts.

I see this as particularly the case in the locks, but also in the back row.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t any good ones (Cullen Grace, anyone, or the seed of Todd Blackadder for example), or that the rest are useless, but what it does suggest is that right now, this season, the fabric has been stretched thinner than I can recall for many a year.