The lighter side of rugby.

I often hear the old cliché “we want to play heads up rugby”. What the hell, a meerkat does that, he stick his head out to survey the threats of nature. Then he runs, away, not forward into the danger zone.

The other cliché that really grinds my bones, is “ we have to play what is in front of us”. Once again, isn’t that overstating the obvious. The sad thing is we don’t play what is in front of us. Be it a Curtly Beale, James O’Connor, Conrad Smith or even the Christian Cullen of old, we repeat the same mistake over and over. We keep on kicking the ball to allow these gentlemen to run at us from deep.

South Africa has a very proud statistic that no other country can boast about. Jonah Lomu never scored a try against us. Brilliant. The Ne Zealanders very soon realised that when confronting a South African with someone like Jonah Lomu their primal instinct would be to deny this man any chance of crossing the white line, and then continued on by using him as the perfect foil. It didn’t take much to outwit a South African, because it is written on our forheads. We will prove to all and sundry that something can be done, and in this case it was to stop Jonah Lomu from scoring a try. In the meantime, Jeff Wilson, Christian Cullen and their mates had a royal time running the tries in from every angle.

This kind of primal warrior like attitude needs to be stamped out of South African rugby. In no other country do you see a back line player purposefully running into his opposite number when there is a gap to exploit. Last Saturday I once again got this sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach every time Jean de Villiers got the ball and deliberately aimed for his opponent. You are not the defender Sir, you have the ball, the objective is to get past your man.

As a loose prop, it may make sense not to read any further in this article, as the only land mammal I managed to beat over 20 meters was a turtle, and he was on crutches at the time.

Forward play is simple, the theory is you pick a strong enough pack to scrum the toffee out of your opponent. England last Saturday looked clueless in their back line, but yet by luck or glory the Welsh managed not to give away a penalty try. A scrum is a deadly weapon, the popular opinion these days are to select mobile props, which does make sense. But with the speed of the game, handling errors are never going to stop, 50/50 passes, pressure of defence will always create opportunities for coaches to use the dominance of a strong pack to put pressure on a defending scrum close to their line.
Line outs require big tall physical specimen that in combination requires the “enforcer” and the “line out controller”, that is how SA have dominated line outs during the past number of years.

Loose forwards as a combination in theory, has one “fetcher” or pilferer, a ball carrying monstrosity with the capability of running through brick walls, whilst chomping on his favourite hamburger, and then the almighty hard working “labourer”, the man that takes no prisoners and expects no mercy.
As a fourth loose forward the job of hooker requires a mobile, fast thinking Jack of all trades.

Then getting to the back line. To me the first and most important responsibility of a half back is to clear the ruck, Window shopping like the proverbial meerkat is not required, that you do with your girlfriend on Saturday morning before the game, on the pitch you have peripheral vision, that is the ability to see what is going on around you without having to roll your eyeballs around in their sockets.

In modern day rugby when the ball leaves the ruck it takes approximately 1.5 seconds for the defending opposition to clear the 15 meters of space between the receiver and the defender. Considering that the receiver is in forward motion at the time ( well supposed to be), that time can be halved. So any delay in clearing the ball from the ruck or scrum has dire consequences for the ball carrier.

Creating play is not a new concept, in the amateur days even small clubs had different plays in their back lines to surprise defensive lines on attack. This is an absolute requirement these days, and running straight towards your opponent rarely results in a positive outcome for the attacking team.
When will players learn that the referee is their friend. How many times do we see players off their feet at ruck time, when you are lying there, you can do no good for your team, lying on the ground means there is one less defender, or in the case of the attacking team one less supporter for the ball carrier. The referee penalises you, but what should happen in reality is your teammates should slap the toffee out of you for not being able to take part in the ensuing move.

The offload, is similar to a pass, it is termed as such because when tackled you have an opportunity to continue play by offloading to a support runner and not go to ground like Wynand Olivier looking as if he wants to plant the thing into the ground hoping it would sprout some tries.

The kick, or should I say the infamous kick, many coaches, fans and pundits will tell you the kick is killing the game. Well to be honest that is simply just a load of rubbish. A defensive kick is needed when you are standing inside you goal area and someone like Jerome Kaino is so close you can see the veins in his eyeballs. No time for bravery, get the ball out of your twenty two. The box kick provides little scrum halves the opportunity to kick the ball into space, and run underneath the legs of the defending team, to simply draw the ball in and score untouched. Similar to what Ricky January did to the All Blacks on that fateful day in Duneden.

The up and under is supposed to be a surprise tactic, well used when the defence rushes up and only the fullback ( if he is wise enough to be there) is back, this then allows your runners to go forward and the defending team has to run back under pressure. It is supposed to be used as an attacking option, not the “I have nothing better to do with the ball” option.

Anyway, it is Friday afternoon, got nothing better to do, so thought I would enlighten you lot on how to play the game.

If you do go out on the rugby field this weekend, do one smart thing you have never done before.

This kind of primal warrior like attitude needs to be stamped out of South African rugby. In no other country do you see a back line player purposefully running into his opposite number when there is a gap to exploit.

Excuse me? Do you not watch England play?

So that's where it originated, I always wondered about that

Biltong. Nice article. Although I must say I am not a fan of the box kick at all. The scrum half is essentially putting up a 50/50 ball, to gain just 10 – 20m, where as that gain can be made more effectively in just 3 or 4 phases of play. Plus the resulting pin ball effect of two wingers slapping in the ball can often result in the opposition have a chance to attack in broken field.

One of my pet hates however is the squandering of overlaps. Its simple maths. Just spot it and use it. Last week when England played us in Cardiff, they repeatedly kicked the ball even when Jamie Roberts and Mike Phillips were off the field (at different times). Senseless. Use the overlap.

Interestingly, Lomu never scored against Wales or Fiji, either.

Or Finland!

Done well the box kick is excellent, especially for teams with strong lineouts. Keep it close to the line and push the catcher into touch as soon as they get the ball. It's the same as most kicking...very good if used properly and very bad if not.

Now you see I didn`t know that. How many tries did the other guys score?

biltongbek wrote:Now you see I didn`t know that. How many tries did the other guys score?

against wales?


too many

Good read, thanx biltong.

I really like the cross field kick to the wingers, that over the box kick any time.

Surprised not see many more chip over defenders now as most defence seems flat, dog legged defence out of favours to counter sissors and switch running. That unlocks many a defence line.

Grubber kicks often gets snuffed out, though Carter did one against us in NZ.

biltongbek wrote:Now you see I didn`t know that. How many tries did the other guys score?

England, as it turns out. The only country he scored against

England then waited more than 15 years to have their own winger score four tries so they could declare him "the best winger in the world", unfortunately it was against Italy. They didn't notice, and promptly vowed to move on to the next item that they'd been jealous of all those years: not having a black kit.

I feel the title of this artcile is unfairly excluding to Andy Goode, otherwise a fantastic piece.

Speaking of halfbacks kicking, Weepu's kicks in the first half of the Aussie game were outstanding. Created uncertainty in the Wallaby midfield which gave the NZers a leg up in terms of getting over the advantage line as the Wallabies didn't know if the ball was going to be put behind them or not.

SBW can be a weapon this week even if the ABs lose the forward battle. If runners can come from deep he can get the ball away from behind the advantage line and give the runners the chance to beat the cover depending on the angle they run.

Disney no serious remarks will be tolerated on this thread.

Consider yourself reprimanded

You said do one smart thing you've never done before. I thought since my rugby playing days are over that I'd still try it and create a sensible post. My bad. I'll slink to the cyber sideline and try to avoid any Jose Mourinho style ear tweaks on the way.

Hi ,Biltong,did you ever see a classic All Black Ruck,?Line out is a matter of organization.
When did you last see a line out peel,? or call a one man lineout ?
Scrum used to wear teams down,that went out in the 1960`s and did`ntwork much then.they were better scrummagers then too.
Box kick,was a defensive kick by a scrum half over the scrum ,when hit by a
defensive pincer between defending scrum halve and number 7.
Up and under ,or Garry Owen named after the Irish club it came from,was a tactic used in wet and windy weather.
It was a major factor in 1956 with backs beeing swamped by 5 or 6 forwards. To quote Tommy Gentles "That damned Up and under"
over and over again

i remember a few years ago ireland putting about 13 players into a driving lineout? think it worked too, can't remember who they scored against? maybe some of the irish lads can enlighten me.

biltongbek wrote:South Africa has a very proud statistic that no other country can boast about. Jonah Lomu never scored a try against us. Brilliant.

He didn't score against Wales either
Though he only played against Wales 3 times compared to 12 against South Africa, but Wales are weaker!

I remember North Harbour having 15 man scrums and lineups for free kicks back in the early 90s...

Nicely written, Biltongbek - a good laugh.

For years watching Ireland play rugby in the seventies and eighties, I thought dummy runs was a perfect description of the Irish backline.

Pot Hale wrote:Nicely written, Biltongbek - a good laugh.

For years watching Ireland play rugby in the seventies and eighties, I thought dummy runs was a perfect description of the Irish backline.

Thank you Sir, happy you got it, sadly it seems I need to work on my attempts at writing satires or humour.