Anatomy of a Try

Rugby is a team sport - something we often forget when we lavish praise on a single player or heap condemnation on another for a mistake. Tries scored - or conceded rarely happen in isolation to the efforts of team-mates. Having read something yesterday, I thought I woudl break down England's second try on Friday:

41:08
After Billy Vunipola knocks on in contact, Dan Biggar clears long down field. Kick gathered by George Ford just inside the Welsh half who feeds the ball inside to Mike Brown. Brown feeds to Jonny May who runs hard and straight. though brought to ground he drives forward in the tackle, allowing england front foot ball about 30m out. Cole and Attwood clear out Warburton and Jenkins to give Ben youngs good clean ball.

41:24
Ben Youngs makes a dart taking the ball up to the 22m line. Attwood clears out AWJ, while May comes in to act as scrum half. He moves the ball right to fors, who ships on to BillyV who drives into the welsh forwards. Good clear outs from Ford, Cole and Hartley allow Youngs to move the ball to the left.

41:40
Robshaw receives the ball and makes a half break. Presence at the ruck from Attwood, Kruis and Haskell give Youngs more quick ball. Ford moves it back to the right passing to Ford who ships it on quickly to BillyV.

41:53.
Deja vu. Good clear outs from Ford, Cole and Hartley allow Youngs to move the ball to the left. His big pass finds Attwood who dummies to pass before stepping inside and driving through Hibbards tackle. More quick ball for Youngs again moved left, this time to Burrell.

42:00
Burrell drives up to the 22mm line, offloads in contact to Kruis who immediately offloads to Robshaw. The skipper looks left to decide whether the pass to to a 3 to 1 overlap in Joseph/Brown/May is feasible. JD2 is lurking for the interception so Robshaw drives back inside. With Robshaw rought to ground, we see Hartley wrestling to prevent two Welshmen stealing the ball.

42:18
Ball squirts out, Youngs first to it, pirouettes away from Jenkins tackle before offloading to Attwood. the big forward drives two welshmen back 10m before all go to ground. Kruis and Marler secure the ball. Youngs moves it left to Burrell then on to Joseph. The Bath centre moves it straight on to Mike Brown, about 5m from touch, 20m from the Welsh line. Ball move straight on again to May, now tight to the touch line.

42:37
May does really well to avoid being bundled into touch, driving the ball to within 10m of the Welsh line as we enter the 11th phase. Youngs feeds Burrell on the crash. the Saint offloads to haskell and it is ruck time 7m from the line. Ball is moved back in field to a charging Kruis. with Attwood in support we now have a ruck on the 5m line.

42:57
Youngs fires the ball wide to ford who takes it up to the defensive line. He shapes to feed BillyV but welsh defence alert, so ford hangs on ans takes contact. bundled back slightly, Colly, vunipola and Robshaw secure the ball. BillyV picks and drives a couple of metres. Cole repeats. Ben Youngs is one of the players involved in clearing out red shirts, so Haskell again picks and drives.

43:22
15th phase. Youngs getting to his feet, so Kruis picks and drives again. Cole helps clear out the defender but ball slowed down. youngs moves it left to Robshaw who drives back beyond the 5m line. Warburton looks to make the turnover but wiped out by Burell. youngs moves it back right to Marler who drives it up.

43:40
19th phase. Youngs snipes towards the posts before feeding ford. Ford jinks and brought down 2m from line in shadow of the posts.

43:50
20th phase. Youngs gets the ball away quickly to Joseph running an outside arc. the Rest is history.


3 minutes and 20 phases of rugby. All bar Watson involved repeatedly. Joseph - rightly gets the plaudits - but a true team try.

I loved the way the whole thing came across as so patient and inevitable. I did think it was great skill from Joseph at the end standing up the two defenders before breaking away, but it is great to give credit where it is due, to the whole team.

Very good. This is why I get frustrated sometimes when people focus on very small details ignoring the good work of some players as it wasn't in the couple of seconds before a try etc.

LT
such a ghood write up it made me want to watch it again.
~ final 13 phases covered in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPi7kmY3xQ8

Great write up. A few things stand out:
- A lot of good decision-making by the team
- How important Cole is to England's breakdown play
- The number of times in that sequence Robshaw was involved in protecting possession from a dangerous position
- May's impact in making yards and keeping possession
- Attwood's impact as a carrier.

Really good write up LT.

What stands out for me in particular there is how hardworking our second rows are, seemingly every phase has involvement from Attwood or Kruis. It was a very good team try though, you just felt that something was building.

Irresistable force meets a moveable object.
Force wins. Seemed inevitable.

Impressive teamwork on so many phases coupled flawless decision making and precise hands.
Along with some finishing subtlety. So promising if England can continue this.

Londontiger you are right. Rugby is a team sport. Good write up. Perhaps I do focus too much on individual errors or individual excellence. I guess it's the extra analysis which is needed to truly see how a player has contributed.

Though saying that Joseph gets the plaudits because it's him who broke the deadlock and he still had a lot to do - it's not as if he strolled over.

Players can get their team in numerous good positions but it needs someone to turn that possession and territory into points.

Ultimately it's obviously the penalties,tries and conversions that win matches.

I don't think a try was inevitable but the ball retention by England particularly in the 2nd half was excellent. It felt like England were in control of the match but still only had a 5 point win.

You are right though - sometimes some of the work by certain individuals is overlooked when it shouldn't be.

Well, a try is a try.

There have been some truly breathtaking solo tries and some wonderful team tries.....and even those less marketable, less sexy, dirty groundhog tries that come late after an eternal sequence of tryline phases that fail, fail, fail and fail again before conclusion (orgasmic ones you might call 'em ) - I find them all beautiful in their own way.

There is a 'specialness' about the precision of a great extended team sequence of interplays finally bringing about the try - yes.  But the exquisite touch is still that final Successful touch-down.  That's the moment that allows the effort of all the others sing through the years and decades.

So a lot of the weight of a team try is still reliant on one player not fluffing the beauty and finding the perfect conclusion.  Big responsibility still sits on one individual.

Very poetic, but not sure I agree there, Fly. It's harder to see but the finest moment in the build up to a try is the point where someone sees the opportunity and creates the chance.

Joseph's finish was excellent, but the opportunity came about partly because the successive phases had left the Welsh wide defence trying to cover a potential overlap.

Watson's finish for the first try showed great reactions, but it was created by Brown seeing the space and putting the grubber through.

There was a Will Greenwood webchat where he'd signed on with a tagline to the effect that he was England's leading tryscorer from the centre, and someone quipped that most of those had been made by a pass or chip from Wilkinson - to which Greenwood replied "Who do you think called them?"

Finishers get a lot of credit from the fans, but it's more complicated than that. I suspect it's a deep understanding of the dynamics of creating tries that enables the All Blacks to conjure the winning score so often just when they really need it. Now that's magic...

The final guy who places the ball is still absolutely essential to all the other good stuff being wrapped up for the history books under the title Glory Team Try, poorfour.

Had the try not come off, how long would those lead in moments be actually remembered in folk-history?  

In truth beautiful team work can happen every few weeks in club, and it can happen in games where the end result isn't a try - I've even seen some of it in practice last week end, and England played some of it - delicious little combined team moves that don't quite come off

So that combination work can happen quite often that can take your breath away.  And that in itself maybe should be appreicated more in isolation. But box-office is box-office. Tries are when memory kicks in. And the memories mostly only register, and acknowledge, and appreciate.................when the last man rubber stamps the put down.
Not taking anything away from the other players - but in the sense of historic team tries - the finisher (an individual) MUST finish.

The money shot is vital - but the work that goes before crucial.

I was just pointing out how much effort, much of it from unsung players, went into allowing Joseph to provide the climax.

You're making Robshaw sound like a fluffer stop it.