Analysis: Crusaders bend but don’t break

In the seven years that Super Rugby has been around, rather than Super 12 or 14, the Crusaders have made it to the playoffs in six of those years and the final in three of them. In two years, 2012 and 2013, their progress to the final was halted by the Chiefs and there was a possibility that history would repeat itself in 2017. That wasn’t to be.

In the end, the Crusaders ran out fairly comfortable winners at home. Take a look at the stats however, and you would think that the Chiefs had it easy but had somehow conspired not to collapse over the finishing line to be victorious.

The Chiefs ran for 538m in 176 attempts, they passed 213 times, they had 67% of possession and 69% of territory, they won 135 rucks over the game. They dominated in every aspect of the match, except that they only scored one try, and that was at the 78 minute mark when the game was gone. As good as the stats might be, the Chiefs took 538 metres and turned it into six meaningful points.

When games have this level of statistical imbalance, you would normally expect the winning side to have a great defence, with the metres gained coming from the overwhelming possession advantage. Actually, the Chiefs were the better side, they missed nine of their tackles for an 86% success rate, the Crusaders missed 29 for an 84% tackle success rate.

So the big question is this, how did the Crusaders miss more tackles, concede more territory and play with less ball but still give away just six important points? It all comes down to the principle of bending and not breaking. The Crusaders’ defence would give up yardage all the way up the pitch, apart from inside their own 22. Think of it a bit like basketball, teams can move easily from one end to the other, but the real difficulty comes in those final few metres up to the net. After all, in rugby, you don’t get any points for moving one metre in your own half, but you get five points for doing it when you’re on the opposition’s one yard line.

Look at the example above, Damian McKenzie was the only person to run for more than 100m during the game, he picks up another chunk of yardage here. The chip is on because the line speed is quick, but there’s not much space to drop it into because the Crusaders have dropped players back. They will take this result all game, a kick which has to be perfect, to a player who gains yardage but is then held up before the attackers can take advantage of the broken field.

No team wants to concede this type of yardage, whoever you are and whatever the name of your defensive coach, this is not in the plan. You could argue that the Crusaders’ defence has broken here. But look at the score, the Crusaders don’t concede any points here, instead, this break gets the Chiefs up the pitch, but then the Crusaders scramble back and the following happens.

That’s a knock on and turnover ball. Again, the Crusaders throw down the shutters when they feel the breath of their own line on their necks.

Here’s a final example of what happened when the Chiefs broke through. This is an absolutely perfect cross field kick, or kick pass – whatever we call them now. The Crusaders won’t be too unhappy giving away this, you can’t defend the entire pitch and you have to occasionally accept conceding yardage to amazing skill. But, watch what happens when the tackle is made, there’s instantly five Crusaders in the picture. A scramble defense isn’t just making the tackle, it’s also getting back quickly enough to stop the next phase attack.

We’ve seen how the Crusaders bent, but we’ll now look at how they were able to completely dominate the game in their own 22. Look how well the defence move around the ruck in this example, that frees up Matt Todd to go straight through the middle and eventually get the penalty. You can debate whether the ball was out, but once you get your guards in place, it gives you the freedom to go and disrupt a ruck without concern that you are opening up space in your fringe defence.

If you can’t steal the ball, just slow it down. David Havili scrags James Lowe off this first phase and the Crusaders then pile in to drive him back. Crucially, the rest of the team uses the time that Havili buys them to set up for the second phase. That leads directly to the Todd penalty turnover above.

Later in the game, there’s a half-break. The Crusaders are outside their own 22 so this is to be expected. Jordan Taufua holds up Brodie Retallick, which slows down the next phase. Importantly, look at the rest of the Crusaders team, they have no interest in contesting the ruck, they just filter into the line, at the end of the clip, there’s no real suggestion that this is broken field, it looks like a defensive line who have had hours to set up.

You can do really intelligent stuff in defence where you minimize your own weaknesses and prepare your team for all eventualities, or, you can just smash the opposition whenever they get near you. Tim Nanai-Williams had a pretty good game, but he gets absolutely flattened here. Hit your opposition backwards and you’ll find the speed of ball gets slower and the running from deep pretty much disappears.

This is just perfect, McKenzie doesn’t really help Aaron Cruden out with this pass, but the fly-half probably doesn’t expect to get hit as hard as he does when he sees that slight chink of light in the defence. The same principles apply though, whilst some of the forwards are doing the Youtube worthy hits, the rest of the team are just quietly getting into position for the next phase.

All that leads to this sort of thing, where you run out of options and end up handing the ball over. Another unsuccessful visit to the Crusaders redzone.

Finally, if you think your defence is starting to weaken, concede a penalty and walk away with just three points of damage. Yes, it’s cynical and many would argue that penalties in your own 22 should be dealt with more harshly, but teams should keep doing it until the advantage is lessened.

Conclusion

When the Lions played the Hurricanes, they had 69% possession, 70% territory, ran for 663m and won 104 rucks. As a side note, the Lions astonishingly missed 22 tackles, they only had to make 44! They missed 50% of all their tackles. Anyway, the Lions of Saturday sound exactly like the Chiefs of Saturday, the only difference is that the Lions scored six tries.

The Crusaders will be expecting more parity than they had against the Chiefs, if they can see more of the ball, whilst also making the 22 a no-go zone, they will frustrate the Lions and force more mistakes. However, if the Lions can keep hold of the ball and stretch this Crusaders’ defence, then they pose more threats than the Chiefs did. Either way, this should be an absolute cracker, the top two teams in Super Rugby? Yes please!

by Sam Larner