Analysis: Who is Wales’ best option at 10?

Adam Kyriacou

Our analyst Sam Larner is back this week and studies who should be wearing the fly-half shirt for Wales going into 2019’s Rugby World Cup.

Wales are at a crossroads. They are trying to get more expansive and exciting in their play but although there have been improvements, it’s still very much a work in progress. There’s no position where this crossroad is more apparent than at fly-half. The current incumbent is Dan Biggar, but he is coming under serious pressure from Rhys Patchell. The Scarlets fly-half impressed against Scotland but he was poor in the air and had some giffable gaffes against England which led to him dropping out of the starting team for the rest of the Six Nations.

There’s a summer tour, a set of autumn internationals, a Six Nations and some warm-up games before the 2019 World Cup. That’s quite a bit of time to sort out the game-plan for the new Wales but decisions will need to be made about who will pull on the number ten jersey.

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Biggar is an absolute colossus in the air. He is probably the best fly-half in the world when it comes to taking the high ball. He can compete for his own kicks or, as in the above example, chase a perfectly placed box kick. He’s fearless in the air and in a sport which is increasingly played out through the kicking game, this is a crucial skill.

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If you watch how Wales defend, you’ll see that they often put both wings into the defensive line and drop the fly-half, and often a forward, back to support the full-back. This eases the pressures on the fly-half defensively but means that they have to be able to deal with kicks and transition well from attack to defence.

As we’ve discussed, Biggar has the aerial ability when chasing attacking kicks but also defensively under pressure. That should be framed in the context that Biggar’s whinging over a legitimate tackle ends up with him losing the ball.

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This clip is very similar to the last one except that Patchell doesn’t collect the high ball. He gets in a good position but Anthony Watson climbs highest and grabs the ball back. The full-back Gareth Anscombe has been pulled into the line and when Patchell loses the aerial battle there’s nobody back covering the kick and it’s easy for Owen Farrell to find open space with the kick.

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There had been some talk of playing Patchell at full-back for Wales, but I think that as good as he has been in stints there for the Scarlets, the way Wales play requires a fly-half who is more comfortable under the high ball or a rethink of their defensive systems.

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Whether Patchell’s presence under the high ball is a weakness is still up for debate, but one thing is clear – his kicking game is sensational. The clip above is from the controversially disallowed Welsh try against England. Patchell has to land this cross kick into an area no larger than six square metres, to put that into some context, that’s about the size of a flat you could rent in London if you were earning an average wage. If he lands the kick any further from the sideline then Danny Care has an easy catch, any further and it’s in touch. This is perfection on Patchell’s part.

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This example is similar but the kick is even longer. You could argue that this kick is around a metre ahead of where Josh Adams wants it but even so, it’s around a 40m cross kick which needs to be landed on a few patches of turf. More and more teams are employing blitz or rush defences and one of the ways to counter that is to kick across or over the defence.

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Patchell’s time at full-back may not have improved his aerial ability but it has improved his poise at the back. In the above clip he has to deal with a bouncing ball and a hard chase from Tommy Seymour but instead of launching a rushed kick or getting caught with the ball he calmly steps around the chase and releases Leigh Halfpenny who makes yardage and keeps the ball.

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His time at full-back has also improved his running lines when joining the attack. In this example he is tracking the ball across the pitch defensively and when Scotland lose it he picks a line and charges at speed.

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He does the same here where he fills in on the near side of the pitch after the ball went wide to the far side. There’s a nice bit of fancy skill in here which makes this a little more memorable but this open field running ability is what really matters. With the new Welsh attacking structure where there are numerous first receiver options, the fly-half will be asked to contribute more in these wide roles.

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It’s hard to say, with the currently available data, who is the better distributing fly-half. Popular opinion would say it’s Patchell, but the whole purpose of performance analysis is to actually find proof and not just go with the prevailing wind. What we do know however, is that Patchell launched some sublime passes against both Scotland and England which sliced the opposition in two. In this example, the fly-half takes the ball to the line and distributes flat across the face of the Scottish defence to Cory Hill who runs through the hole. If Patchell doesn’t take the ball up, John Barclay will probably get across and stop the attack.

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These flat slung passes across the defender’s noses are a feature of Patchell’s play. Sure, Samson Lee’s little flick turns this into a highlight but firing the ball at speed opens up so many more options than hurling a looping pass along the line.

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Just a couple of examples left and you might be wondering why I have bothered to include this one. It’s not a great pass but as the next example will show, this is all Patchell’s doing. Also, if he runs to the line before distributing he probably draws the defence to him and shuts down the running lane, he almost backs away from the defender and that opens up the dogleg.

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As promised, you can see Patchell direct traffic here. He knows that he’s facing a hooker and a lock and with Halfpenny holding the inside drift this is prime attacking territory. Ben Toolis doesn’t read this situation as quickly as Patchell and he drifts way too soon allowing Aaron Shingler to slip through the gap.

Conclusion

This is an evolving Welsh team. The era of Warrenball have been left behind thanks to a new crop of distributing players, the likes of; Owen Williams, Owen Watkins, Patchell, Anscombe, Hadleigh Parkes etc. Whoever emerges as the starting fly-half will have plenty of help to the outside of them but in exchange they will be expected to get the line firing and inject some creativity. For me, that person is Patchell but he needs to make the England game an anomaly.

by Sam Larner