Analysis: How Scarlets and Exeter adapted for glory
Our resident analyst breaks down where the Scarlets and Exeter Chiefs excelled on the road to their respective titles this weekend.
It’s fair to say that the two league winners from the weekend were the underdogs in the final – Exeter less so.
Exeter had never won a league title and the Scarlets hadn’t won one since 2004 – when there were five Welsh teams, three Scottish ones and Neil Jenkins was the leading points scorer in the league.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am a Scarlets supporter and I’m very happy to be writing about them yet again. I watched their game on a mobile phone on a canal boat – one of the more unusual ways I’ve followed their successes this season.
Despite both teams winning, they went about it in totally different ways. Exeter dominated possession, they had 68 percent of it and won 197 rucks. The Scarlets had 40 percent of possession and won just 58 rucks – despite winning by six tries to three.
Exeter made Wasps attempt 282 tackles, Munster attempted just 83 and made only 54 successful tackles. Scarlets ran for 105 metres fewer than Munster, 505 vs 400. Exeter made 218 metres more than Wasps, 713 vs 495. Despite these completely different approaches to the end goal of winning the game, both sides now have a big lump of silverware to find a place for at their home grounds.
In this article, we’ll look at how each team’s attack allowed the ticker tape to fall down on them and let them leave a changing room covered in empty cans.
Scarlets
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the biggest thing that had changed to the Scarlets between this year and last was their defensive strengths. They strengthened up their points prevention and have now reaped the ultimate benefit.
Despite all this, they are still a swashbuckling team in attack and they showed that on Saturday with some breathtaking tries.
The first example we will look at above however, is from an early break within the first five minutes. It’s a really simple game plan, Scarlets will probably be beaten in an arm wrestle, so as much as possible they will keep the big Munster pack moving around. They crash up in the middle from first phase with John Barclay and immediately they have the overlap.
Overlaps are created in every game but it requires huge skill to actually execute them. Rhys Patchell was having an amazing day and the first try above comes from an overlap that he takes advantage of with a perfectly placed kick.
The second try, above and below, is another example of Scarlets eschewing the easy clearance kick and instead testing the large Munster pack to see how they could defend from deep.
The passing in this clip is incredible. Rob Evans has a perfect pair of hands and has gone a long way ease Welsh worries about the declining fortunes of Gethin Jenkins, and, there’s not enough praise to give Tadhg Beirne for his performances this season.
Of course, none of this sideline to sideline play is possible without laying the groundwork first. This is achieved by running straight at a defence which is both tired, from being made to run from side to side, and mentally taxed, from trying to account for every speedy player they have coming at them.
Barclay does superbly in the below clip to squeeze through a gap and get over the gain-line. Unfortunately he doesn’t have any support runners but he’s freed his hands and would be in a great position to put them through for a significant gain.
An even better example of this is in the below clip where Scott Williams straightens up and runs straight at the week spot between a forward and a drifting back. The Welsh centre goes straight through and sets up the third try, which started to make the fans believe a victory was a possibility.
In this last example for the Scarlets, we’ve briefly seen how the West Walian team overpowered the Munster defence by going wide and how they created the space to do this by going hard through the middle. However, rugby remains a game where all the intrigue and tactical improvement can be undone/improved by one player wanting it more than another, or a few others.
The desire and strength shown below by Beirne will be soon forgotten, because the win was by such a margin, but for me, it’s one of the high points of a season filled with high points.
Exeter
The Exeter attacked relied on phases and hard earned yardage, although both tries were things of beauty as we will see below. In the first example, however, we’ll look at the lineout, the lineout has been a constant source of positive attacking possession over the last number of seasons.
This early example doesn’t work though as we see below – Wasps have practiced stopping the Chiefs maul and so they have to adapt.
They do that by playing off the top and allowing their backs to get their hands on the ball, how both tries are scored. The example below ends in a dropped pass but it’s clear how much of a threat the Chiefs pose of their lineout, even when the driving maul is removed.
That leads us on to the try below; it is set up like a driving maul and this sucks in blindside defenders.
When Luke Cowan-Dickie pulls the defense wide, there’s nobody left inside to cover the cutting Jack Nowell who scores a great try in the corner. The Chiefs leveraged their well marked strength to create a different strength, elsewhere on the pitch.
Thomas Waldrom has been a wonderful servant for Exeter and he carried out more work than anyone on Saturday. He carried the ball for 106 metres, the second highest for the Chiefs, in 37 attempts, 17 more than anyone else in the game.
His role was very simple, he had to break through the Wasps' defence as much as possible and provide front-foot ball for the backs, as in the example below.
Even when the big number eight wasn’t smashing through the line, he was generating quick ball and allowing the players outside of him to thrive. Again, the important point, is that seemingly insignificant acts like below can make a massive difference at the end of a game.
The Chiefs' second try came from a scrum and a subsequent wide attack.
It’s really simple yet again, Gareth Steenson takes the ball to the line, Ian Whitten runs a hard line which draws two defenders to one man and opens up a hole on the outside for Ollie Devoto to charge through, Phil Dollman runs a fantastic support line and manages to squirm over for the try. It’s yet another example of Exeter’s wide attacking strength.
Conclusion
Exeter are renowned for their bullying set-piece attack, but yet they score basically the same number of tries as the fleet-footed Wasps. Scarlets are renowned for their ultimate caution to the wind style of attacking from deep, yet their defensive capabilities are why they got to the final.
What this essentially tells us is that to get to a final, you need to be a rounded team – which I admit, is not a particularly breathtaking conclusion.
What is perhaps better, is how the best teams adapt to the game plans of the opposition during the game. The Scarlets don’t always have a game plan where they counter attack with minimal possession, but when Munster began to grab the lion’s share of the ball, the Scarlet’s game-plan changed.
Equally, Exeter wouldn’t have expected to have dominated possession, but once they were, the game-plan changed to a more relaxed one where they calmly built phases and identified the opportunities to go wide.
Two very different ways of playing, but both achieved the same result.
Lions Implications
The biggest implication this week is that we’ve reached the Lions. After countless articles predicting what will happen, we will finally get to see the team actually play this weekend.
However, from these two games there’s two points to pick out; firstly, the decision to pick Jonathan Davies over Scott Williams, or at least not to include Williams, is looking a little flawed.
The inside centre has been one of the form players this year and was probably more deserving of a spot. He will at least be close to the Lions when he joins Wales’ Tour.
Secondly, Jack Nowell was selected and he looks to be finding some top form. If he can carry this form over to the opening matches, he could well find himself riding that form all the way to a starting berth.