Vast expanses of Croke Park pitch may add to challenge for Leinster’s rush defence

As a young coach, I attended a seminar at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) on the emotive topic of defensive systems in rugby.

As several senior coaches outlined their beliefs on how to methodically rob the attack of both time and space, they faced a room crowded with swollen egos, who were eager to either pounce or support. The presenter fell into one of two camps. There were apostles of either rushing or sliding defensive systems.

Here, let me remind you that rushing defence, as it is now termed, is not new. It was Warren Ryan, a rugby league coach, who created the rushing system when he led the Canterbury-Bankstown rugby league club to win the Sydney Premiership in 1984 and 1985. Then, it was termed “umbrella defence”.

The exceptional Welsh, French and Lions defensive coach, Shaun Edwards, played under Ryan at the legendary Balmain Tigers rugby league club in 1989. Edwards took Ryan’s concept of umbrella defence when he was a defensive coach at Wasps. So the rushing defensive system used by South Africa and now Leinster is not original.

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At that AIS conference, after a long and heated discussion on the merits and shortcoming of each presentation, our leader and one of my greatest mentors, Brian ‘boxhead’ O’Shea, who was the AIS head coach and responsible for much of Australian rugby’s incredible intellectual property during the late 1980s and 1990s, had been quietly sitting at the back of the room observing the arguments. He was allowing the arrogant, foolish and egotistical to prove all three of those adjectives to be self evident.

Northampton head coach Sam Vesty on meeting Leinster at Croke Park

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Finally, ‘Box’, as he was universally known, walked in silence to the front of the auditorium. Without a glance at the panting hordes, he selected a whiteboard marker and silently wrote a simple mathematical multiplication equation on the board.

100m x 70m = 7,000m²

With his back still turned to the group he called out “What’s that?” After a significant silence a voice returned, “The area of a rugby field”.

“Its an approximation,” Box clarified. “There are no exact dimensions to a rugby field because the width of the field may vary and so does the depth of the in-goal areas, but for our discussion let us assume that 7,000m² is the area of our field of play.”

Box then wrote another very simple subtraction equation.

7,000m² - 15m² = 6,985m²

He did not ask for any clarification of his maths. Like a philosophy professor trying to lead a class of students who have been so indoctrinated with a false ideology that they had lost the ability to see the obvious logic in what is being presented, Box was at the end of his tether.

“Each defender takes up approximately one square metre of space,” Box declared. “So every one of these defensive systems leaves 6,985m² of space to attack. Every defensive system has weaknesses, failings and vulnerabilities. None are perfect. Your job as a coach is to figure out what those vulnerabilities are and then create tactics to exploit their weaknesses.”

As always, Box nailed it.

The universal truth from that day still remains. All defensive systems have weaknesses and vulnerabilities that quality attacking coaches can exploit if, and it’s a very big IF, their players possess sufficient attacking skills.

Leinster’s rushing defence, as coached by Jacques Nienaber, is an exact replica of Warren Ryan’s in that it stands the defenders shoulder to shoulder, compressing them to cover only 40m of the 70m width of the field. The players then fly off the line believing that their compact formation and line speed will steal enough time and space from the attackers to stop them getting the ball to the 6,985m² of undefended space.

Like South Africa at last year’s World Cup, Leinster are now leaving vast tracts of territory vacant outside their last defender. Ireland’s accurate, skilful and effective passing game unlocked the Springboks’ rushing system twice this season, proving that Box O’Shea’s statement remains relevant.

La Rochelle’s performance against Leinster in the quarter-final should have sounded a warning siren in D4 as Les Maritimes created several opportunities out wide to score tries. However, their passing skills and decision-making on the day were not of the required quality to exploit those opportunities.

On the vast expanses of Croke Park, a highly-skilled Northampton team will pose an altogether different challenge.

When Northampton defeated Munster at Franklin’s Gardens in the Round of 16, they exploited the space out wide with some exquisite passing and kicking skills. The key to that highly impressive attacking performance was that the Saints earned the right to go around Munster, by first going through them.

While some of the tries against Munster were glamorous, it was the hard yards laid down by the Northampton forwards that paved the path for their electric backs to get around the men in red. Hard forward play that creates fast ruck possession, added to skilful backs is kryptonite to rushing defences.

That said, with a Leinster team littered with class, the key element in Saturday’s match is that Leinster have the rare, exhilarating opportunity to perform at the sporting cathedral that is Croke Park. There is no other stadium in the world that holds such an iconic piece of national identity as Croke Park does to the Irish people.

To me it symbolises the collective state of mind that can only be created by the human spirit’s ability to defiantly rise above both catastrophic injustice and overwhelming odds, creating an indefatigable will that not only endures but, somehow, after long suffering and a refusal to concede, eventually wins.

Perhaps it is fitting that a team that, year after year, have been handed the cold-hearted pain of defeat – always by the humiliating slimmest of margins – continue to defy the predictions of weaker spirits to again and again rise above. It is more than fitting that this team, who have displayed courageous faith in themselves and their coaches, season after season, with no reward for their efforts, have been fated the inspiration of playing at Croke Park.

If Leinster are to fulfil their destiny and prevail this season, they will need more than Xs and Os explaining defensive systems on a whiteboard. They must capture inside their hearts all the intangibles floating within the heady atmosphere of Ireland’s most revered sporting temple.