Linebreaks and tactics...

Just 3 quick questions in the context of the Calcutta Cup match…

The Stats say that there were I think 14 Scottish linebreaks against England on Saturday.

(and yes I do know that Scottish players broke through England's defensive line in the middle of the field an alarming number of times)..

1. Do players making yards on the overlap count as "linebreaks" for the purposes of the stats? I know they're generally going over the advantage line but they haven't broken through the defensive line so much as gone around it.

2. England defended very narrowly on Saturday and then scrambled. Is it likely that England did this deliberately to encourage the Scots to go wide on attack, possibly backing their scramble defence to mow down and turnover any isolated overlap runners?

3.Or did they think that the Scots with Park at the helm would not be able to take advantage of the space they continually left out wide?

I would assume a mixture of 3 and 2. They would have naturally been drawn in due to Parks' selection and Scotland's tendency to continually bash it up route 1. As a nod to Max Evans and co though, I suspect they worked on their scramble defence quite a bit.

Interestingly, whilst there were an alarming number of Scotland breaks, quite a number were due to reasonably simple first up missed tackles. Bearing in mind most of the team are new, and the rest haven't played 'international' rugby since October I thought they did fairly well.

I can tolerate dog-legs and players breaking ranks, mis alignment, crooked chases, players not quite trusting their inside/outside partner and making a tackle that isn't theirs as symptoms of new combinations, but missing tackles is something which is about ability, technique and commitment rather than combinations and international naivity.

One thing I did notice on the weekend is both Ireland and Scotland were more succesful when they attacked up the middle, out wide they didn't beat the defence. The welsh back line is too fast and England's back three as well.

Re first up tackles being missed. We should not be exposing the likes of Cole too much. He missed a bad on on a scotland back 5 player that was damaging. Hamilton i think?

Cole needs to work on it BUT its a system error also. You dont expose your props to 1 on 1 tackles too much esp vs faster more agile players!

I read somewhere that we had Croft and Robshaw jumping in our defensive lineout. That time spent airborne costs us in defensive organisation. Dean Ryan analysis i think.

Also bit worried that if we defend narrowly like that (even if were not letting them through the middle) then France, Wales and to a lesser extent Ireland will punish us on the overlap. SH sides would murder us.

England are lucky that we have Scotland and Italy first up even if they are away fixtures.

Would be surprised if they defended with a similar narrow formation again in the competition (maybe bring it back against Italy). They sussed that Scotland were using their forwards and taking the ball on after one pass, keeping it close. They adapted accordingly.

On question 1, I understand it is linked to the phase of possession, so you would only have 1 linebreak in a phase of possession. If the ball is taken into contact and recycled you are into a new phase and might have another line break.