Pod versus flood.

I've watched the France game snatching try about a dozen times now because at the time I couldn't figure out how on earth it happened.

But check the switch to a three pod forward system when szarzewski comes on. From then France rinse and repeat a simple plan. Close left flank pod, mid field pod, right flank pod, mid field, ...

It looked laboured, and static and painfully pedestrian. But it seems that might've been the plan.

England all the time flooding each breakdown. Their entire pack traversing the field whilst France stay in three distinct pods.

Then two crucial things happen, fofana gets the first French offload of the half away, meaning the pace to the right pod is quicker, England's marauding breakdown flood is slow to arrive and Nyanga runs through brown. Then with quick ball France go full left flank. As the pass goes through the midfield again half of England's pack is still headed towards the right hand pod. The most lateral defender is less than half way across the pitch. They look exhausted. The try is already conceded at that point.

This is EXACTLY  the same way that England conceded against NZ in the AIs.

If England persist with their breakdown flood they need to be able to guarantee they can strangle the ruck for 80 minutes, because if quick ball arrives then they are horribly exposed.  Looks like a patient team will back themselves as the game draws to an end as England's increased self imposed workload takes its toll.

Also check how much ground mike brown covers in that 4 minute spell. Almost 5 laps of the pitch. Exhausting stuff.

As the ball arrives at szarzewski he has moved about 10 paces from where he was 5 phases ago. The England pack have trapsed back and forth twice. Little wonder he had the edge in his legs.

Stick to this type of post GE, very interesting.

very interesting.

likelihood of conceding a try must be increased by all the positional shuffling and obvious lack of communication in the backs in the last 15 minutes.

however it almost worked for england. arguably without farrell and nowell getting cramp, they may have successfully defended that last french attack.

but the answer, if you are right GE, is not in being fitter than they already are, it's in being more efficient.

have been reflecting on it, and i also suspect that the french players appearing less fit and palpably more tired than the english players (forwards in particular) would have contributed significantly to them NOT moving laterally across the pitch. i would find it hard to credit a team's organisation in the last 15 minutes when bodies and minds are that tired to finesse correctly the tactic you highlight above GE. maybe, but i'm not convinced.

even so, it's only a way of attempting to tire out the opposition, and if so effective why wait til they were behind in the game to try it?

Quins, remember GE has only outlined the "pod" (his term) as to when a team is on attack.

The same applies to defence, Ive watched on more than one one occassion an opposition team being guided across the filed to the right hand side where a "pod" comprising Sam Whitelock, Andrew Hore and R McCaw are waiting and whammo.

i can see the attraction, but that's not what france were doing. maybe, maybe they were doing it in attack, but not at 75mins with all those tired legs, no. the french just arent that organised.

england lost their own lineout on french 5 yd line, nyanga made a 50yd kick return some mins later, possession was recycled, all of england's back line were playing out of position or with cramp, france score.

Really interesting thread... I failed to do any sort of analysis of what was actually happening and simply screamed NOOO! at the TV!! Will maybe watch again but not ready yet.

i was watching the game on my turbo trainer (think road bike stuck on rollers) and when burrell scored, i and the bike fell over (feet are clipped in), shouting happily and my 4 year old ran in saying daddy daddy are you ok?

i couldnt have been happier.

shame these things cant last... ;(

I've not got perfect memory but isn't the crucial aspect in the final score Burrell stepping in from the wing to assist in the hit on Swarzeski? Leaves Goode with a two on one where he tries to hold up the pair by not committing but Ficku hits the after burners and It's goodnight.

Like the analysis GE. England were too keen to commit to the rucks and force the play. The best teams bide their time, defend well and then select the weakly defended ruck to flood and contest.

formerly known as Sam wrote:I've not got perfect memory but isn't the crucial aspect in the final score Burrell stepping in from the wing to assist in the hit on Swarzeski? Leaves Goode with a two on one where he tries to hold up the pair by not committing but Ficku hits the after burners and It's goodnight.

Like the analysis GE. England were too keen to commit to the rucks and force the play. The best teams bide their time, defend well and then select the weakly defended ruck to flood and contest.

There were two English defenders facing five French attackers, there was no correct option. Nice finishing though.

was a drift defense and ended up being 2 on 1 when they got the ball to fickou. was only 5 on 2 before the drift, when french ball carriers were still 10 yds away from the english defensive line

quinsforever wrote:i was watching the game on my turbo trainer (think road bike stuck on rollers) and when burrell scored, i and the bike fell over (feet are clipped in), shouting happily and my 4 year old ran in saying daddy daddy are you ok?

i couldnt have been happier.

shame these things cant last... ;(

ha ha! I'm a fan of the turbo trainer myself in the winter.

Perhaps there lies the merit in France playing with a left-right flanker combination rather than a traditional blindside-openside partnership. Players are required to cover a smaller area of the pitch and have all the more energy to show for it.

Having said that, Nyanga looked like he could have played on for another hour. Unbelievable how he has been ignored by previous French coaches.

Nyanga form always been a bit erratic and he also lost almost a year with injury. In the past he used to be 2nd choice behind Bonnaire and harinordoquy and more recently behind ouedraogo who is a similar type of flanker. I like the way he took leadership with Dusautoir being out.

Very interesting angle GE. I think that what made a small difference leading in te Fickou try was Fofana hitting the English midfield and releasing the ball before it was effectively a ruck. At that point a few of the english players were already committed and there was hardly anybody outwide. So indeed nothing very special in the end appart from the nice finish.

Good post GE. I don't have the rugby brain to pick up on these things but I'll keep a look out for it in games now.

Gatland tried out the Pod tactic for two matches and then in a shock decision publicly dumped the tactic, which resulted in a flood of complaints.

Nice post GE. It reminds me of a BBC documentary where dolphin pods attacked huge shoals of sardines off the coast of South Africa.

I had a really delicious tuna nicoise ciabatta for breakfast this morning. Fantastic.

ebop wrote:Good post GE. I don't have the rugby brain to pick up on these things but I'll keep a look out for it in games now.

+1   

New Zealand are exponents of the pod system obviously as well. The NZ game vs England was also another example. England falling behind to the NZ pae before gaining ascendancy in the pack as there were often situations with the whole England pack against a NZ pod, but as the game wore on England got fatigued and the NZ pods enabled them to play a wider faster game. It does reap the benefits but I've questioned on here the wisdom of not committing enough numbers to the breakdown as you can lose the initiative.

Also for that try I have to again point out Goode taking the dummy-a schoolboy error. He should have fixed himself and made Fickou pass-the conversion was decisive.

Yeah, it's really hard to see what actually happened because the TV coverage was woeful. It does look like the last ditch England defense was poor. Similar to the opening try too.

There was also a key moment about 5 phases prior to the final try where the ball bounced loose, several England players were hesitant, wondering whether they were on side as the ball ricochetted around. In the end a frenchman dives on it and this sets up the phases that lead to the try. Tough call in that situation whether to possibly concede the penalty and snuff out the move.

Also worth mentioning the England's set piece fell apart towards the end. Has anyone been paying attention to Vunipola's scrummaging? Check out the last scrum of the match as a classic example. Two sets in a row, Vunipolla takes one step left and basically bores in on the hooker facing virtually towards the side-line. I'm with Bob Dwyer on this one, how on Earth is he getting away with it? He's basically perpendicular to the scrum. Both scrums went down as a result of his angle.

I'd love to post up a screen-grab of it to highlight the problem, but I'm on a protected VPN at the moment so I can't get to iPlayer.

GE: Post it to SL and Rowntree to help them out. I'd like a look too if you can do it.

Whats interesting is the number of people who thought Englands mobile pack would be the one waltzing round the french and making them do the running.
Instead they spent the match chasing shadows and to be fair did dominate possession and rarely let the french string phases together.
The problem seems to have been when France did manage to move the ball England were left stranded.
Ashton felt he was dropped because Englands defensive system often leave the back 3 exposed, and we certainly saw that in this game. Nowell and Brown tackled well, but when Goode was covering you might as well have had Ashton there fore all the use he was. In the past Id have put money on Croft appearing from nowhere to make those cover tackles, not just because of his pace but because there would be a forward on the right side of the pitch (cue accusations of him being a ruck dodger etc but sometimes maybe it pays not to have 8 guys stood in a huddle)

Theres no question the screw ups didnt help and good luck to any team defending when you make so many. Its also not that long ago England got slaughtered by the likes of Ireland and South Africa by not committing men to the break down.
Maybe they are just overcompensating (not wishing to cast aspersions about Hartley)
Sometimes you just cant win (big games)

pack your bench with chaps like vunipola and youngs and don't doubt for a 2nd that your set piece will fall apart.

The French are up there with the best in the world come scrum time, the players looked shot sure but was hartley and marler injured? can't remember myself... if not I think its preferable they stayed on the pitch.

Had Coribisiero and Wilson been fit I think it would have been a different story but you can't expect to be totally injury free at any one time.

Thanks for this post GE, really interesting. I'll have to give it another watch now but instinctively what you say feels right to me. Given my analysis of loses to the French normally goes no further than 'Pft, well, it's the French, they WOULD score at the death wouldn't they?!' ...this is really helpful. Cheers   

P.S. I also definitely agree on Vunipola. Feels like his 'improvements' have largely involved an improved ability to get away with the flagrantly illegal.

GloriousEmpire wrote:Yeah, it's really hard to see what actually happened because the TV coverage was woeful. It does look like the last ditch England defense was poor. Similar to the opening try too.

There was also a key moment about 5 phases prior to the final try where the ball bounced loose, several England players were hesitant, wondering whether they were on side as the ball ricochetted around. In the end a frenchman dives on it and this sets up the phases that lead to the try. Tough call in that situation whether to possibly concede the penalty and snuff out the move.

Also worth mentioning the England's set piece fell apart towards the end. Has anyone been paying attention to Vunipola's scrummaging? Check out the last scrum of the match as a classic example.  Two sets in a row, Vunipolla takes one step left and basically bores in on the hooker facing virtually towards the side-line. I'm with Bob Dwyer on this one, how on Earth is he getting away with it?  He's basically perpendicular to the scrum. Both scrums went down as a result of his angle.

I'd love to post up a screen-grab of it to highlight the problem, but I'm on a protected VPN at the moment so I can't get to iPlayer.

So 79 minutes gone, here's the first set of the final scrum of the game:



Unsurprisingly Vunipola, having shifted to an almost 90 degree angle, collapses. Check the flanker hanging off him and the gap opened up between he and the rest of the scrum, and the second row's inability to bind to him at all. However rather than being penalised, the scrum is reset. Look where the referee is standing and looking. Astonishing.

And now the reset:



Again Vunipola brazenly sticks his left leg out and bores in at an almost 90 degree angle. The scrum is destablised, and eventually goes down, but the ball is out and Owens allows play to continue.

Penalty France in my book, both times. This is just one scrum, but he adopts the exact same approach every time.

Get away with what you can. You could probably ping either prop for inproper binding as well. No bind by Mako from the looks and a possible bind on the arm from the frenchman.

GE, thanks for posting those pictures, but it's just not as bad as you make out.

if you look at the plane of pushing of all of the england front row, they are, as a group of 3, pretty much parallel to the line clearly visibly behind them.

the french scrum is wheeling backwards/sideways, so of course it looks like vunipola is boring in as the french replacement TH is almost 90 degree to the white line. Vunipola on the other hand is actually far more correctly aligned.

so ping vunipola for not wheeling? or ping the whole frenchscrum for moving sideways and backwards?

it is absolutely not as clear as you make out.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Get away with what you can. You could probably ping either prop for inproper binding as well. No bind by Mako from the looks and a possible bind on the arm from the frenchman.

french TH seems to be binding the english LH with his right arm right outside the left upper arm with the grip on the jersey. that is the correct way of binding.
Not too fussed about the penalty tbh as long as it allows the game to keep going without losing the advantage. too much scrums reset or penalised already crippling the game as seen every weekend in France.

Looks to me like he's binding on the arm but fair enough. Hard to call penalties from scrums from still pictures.

Cockerill in the Indy today has harsh words for his own scrummagers efforts on Saturday - he is not happy - cost us the match he says. Maybe Cockers has been following GEs 606 analysis, but either way Cockers agrees with you GE.

I dont know if he agrees they shouldve been penalised but he agrees it wasnt good enough. Almost as if hes hoping Cole will get dropped so they can keep him fresh for Tigers   

I dont think anyone can claim that what used to be a real strength for England is at its best currently. They arent weak and were up against a ludicrous pack, but did struggle. Neither Marler nor Vunipola are famed for their scrummaging, and Coles got his status as untouchable through his work in the loose too. Thomas is just the only bloke available.
But do we want to go back to the days of Payne, White, Bell, Flatman etc?
Yeah they always need to work on the scrummaging but they arent getting tooled (unlike the Wales debacle) and they bring it in other aspects of the game.

gregortree wrote:Cockerill in the Indy today has harsh words for his own scrummagers efforts on Saturday - he is not happy - cost us the match he says. Maybe Cockers has been following GEs 606 analysis, but either way Cockers agrees with you GE.

english scrum was actually better in the second half so i dont think he agrees with GE's specific point.

we would all like the english scrum to be the best, but that was a very, very good french scrum in the first half.

quinsforever wrote:GE, thanks for posting those pictures, but it's just not as bad as you make out.

if you look at the plane of pushing of all of the england front row, they are, as a group of 3, pretty much parallel to the line clearly visibly behind them.

the french scrum is wheeling backwards/sideways, so of course it looks like vunipola is boring in as the french replacement TH is almost 90 degree to the white line. Vunipola on the other hand is actually far more correctly aligned.

so ping vunipola for not wheeling? or ping the whole frenchscrum for moving sideways and backwards?

it is absolutely not as clear as you make out.

I agree that the engagement is square and that all other front rowers are doing a good job of pushing straight.

However vunipola, check the angle of his back bone. That's the axis he's driving along and it's atleast a 45% bore. You can't shove straight with your leg out on that axis.

The French weren't wheeling back. They were actually driving forward, and both scrums collapsed as the English scrum split in two and the second row couldn't maintain their binds on vunipola.

The French Tighthead is driven in by Vunipola, which is why he appears to be starting to bore across himself. I agree static photos aren't the best, but it's illustrating my point of his axis versus everyone else's. If you watch the video it's even more obvious.

The instability behind when he shunts out his leg. If I was a ref I would look for that as a leading indicator.

Really really interesting thread.

As an aside do the team's analysts have access to ther cameras or can they only use the tv coverage as well?

The binding nature of the FR with LHs out on the end, only one shoulder in full contact, giving greater room to pivot around it, means they are often more obviously at an angle and blamed for disrupting the scrum, despite that it may actually be due to illegal measures by the opposition who are trying to pin it on the LH.

I haven't looked at footage of the scrums that the above images reference, but on initial glance they look similar to how Roar's Scott Allen identified the Wallabies targeted Vunipola in the AIs and Lions tour.

https://youtu.be/YYas0aXtRzU?t=38s

Common denominator is vunipola. No smoke without fire. Will be watching him closely in future matches. He looks to be obviously cheating.

Strange that the French LH doesn't have any issues with his one shoulder...

Did you watch the video GE?

I picked that video because he was the common denominator.  As the analysis states, it is a very common tactic to attack a LH.  If the French analysts are worth their salt they would certainly have identified it from England's recent games as worth a go.

The opposition LH wouldn't have any issues as the scrum is moving in the opposite direction for him, so if anything would pivot him back.  If it was a tactic being used, then he also would have had the advantage of knowing it was coming and on what signal.

mbernz wrote:The binding nature of the FR with LHs out on the end, only one shoulder in full contact, giving greater room to pivot around it, means they are often more obviously at an angle and blamed for disrupting the scrum, despite that it may actually be due to illegal measures by the opposition who are trying to pin it on the LH.

I haven't looked at footage of the scrums that the above images reference, but on initial glance they look similar to how Roar's Scott Allen identified the Wallabies targeted Vunipola in the AIs and Lions tour.

https://youtu.be/YYas0aXtRzU?t=38s

Thanks for that link Mbernz, really good detailed stuff. I've seen Brian Moore comment along those lines about Mako before, but that that video is by an Aussie for an Australian website backs it up.

Yeah, I'm not buying it. According to this, vunipola is targeted every single time, but Australia, France, ...

I'm sorry but let's apply Occam's Razor. It's possible he's just simply boring in most of the time rather than a secret global plot by all TH's to make it appear that way.

Let's see if the "conspiracy" against him continues throughout the 6 nations...

"secret global plot"?

"conspiracy"?

What are you on about man?  Doing that to a loosehead prop is one of the oldest tricks in a front row's book, it'll be on show in most matches.  With young or big props being the most susceptible.  Any front row that doesn't try it against a player like Mako doesn't know their game.

Occam's Razor doesn't apply.  There's no change in simplicity between the common incident of either of two opposing props trying to angle in.

Odd that it happens to vunipola all the time and nobody else in those test matches then...

"All the time"?  Can you numerically qualify that?

It's certainly not odd that it would successfully be tried on him. Like I said, it's most effective on inexperienced and bigger players (even more so if they've got a smaller hooker inside them).  Any experienced prop with any sense and ability would try it on Mako (particularly when paired with youngs).

Go back and watch the weekend's matches and you'll see pretty much every front row trying to angle across their opposition, some having the ability to turn the loosehead in, others not.

Ah, so let's get this straight. Opposition TH's are all (lions series where it was raised, Australia at twickenham where it was again raised, France at twickenham where it was AGAIN raised, NZ, ... ) deliberately "forcing" vunipola to bore in...deliberately handing him an advantage to destabilise the opposition scrum...on purpose, so that England can gain scrum penalties?

Sounds fishy to me.

Perhaps, as I've suggested, he's merely deliberately and continuously boring in of his own accord, and this far avoiding being penalised? Can you not condone atleast that possibility?

It's clear from the errors in and how you've laid things out there you're not quite getting how things work in a scrum.  I assume you weren't a forward. It's probably worth you checking out some scrummaging tutorials and analysis on youtube.  That above posted link is a decent enough place to start.

GE is never wrong.  I think it's indisputable that there is a conspiracy to let Vunipola get away with whatever he wants.  They've paid off all the top international refs and even got the Australian media experts to produce videos fictionalising how Australian props cheated.  GE is the only person with the insight into scrummaging and the corrupt international system to notice what is really going on.  WAKE UP PEOPLE!

So Vunipola is cheating and getting away with it? Isn't that what a prop is there for? I thought we were all for playing to the refs interpretation?

All I'm saying is don't start crying when the refs cotton on to him and he gets a reputation for his suspect and illegal style and is continuously (and rightly) pinged by referees in the future.

My thoughts on the OP:

  

GloriousEmpire wrote:All I'm saying is don't start crying when the refs cotton on to him and he gets a reputation for his suspect and illegal style and is continuously (and rightly) pinged by referees in the future.

As Spiro Zavos said:

"Neither Clancy or his assistant referees spotted the invariable boring-in tactics of Mako Vunipola, even though there were many scrums right by the sideline.
The first six scrums of the Test ended with a short-arm or long-arm penalty to England. The astonishing thing about this is that the Wallaby scrum was rock-solid when England did scrum straight."

Hard to argue with that assertion in the bizarre "analysis" provided earlier by an Australian apologist for Vunipola's tactics, I don't get the apologist attitude to what Vunipola was doing, when it's so obvious.

Bob Dwyer has spotted it too:

"He accused the Lions props of binding illegally, putting their hand on the ground for extra stability and, most notably in the case of Mako Vunipola, of angling in from the loosehead side."

Astonishing that referees thus far have turned a blind eye. I expect, that like everything in rugby, the pendulum will swing and he'll find himself on the receiving end of a lot of penalties and possibly deserved yellow cards.