Trends

[deco]

Two Ospreys goal line dropouts dropkicked straight back over the bar tonight by the sharks - both from about 45m

That's pretty cool too be fair

[riocard911]

Pretty spectacular!!!

[cormac]

Two Ospreys goal line dropouts dropkicked straight back over the bar tonight by the sharks - both from about 45m

If that does become a trend I suspect they'll tweak that law to ensure the team receiving the drop out has to go through at least one phase before they can attempt a drop kick.

[dropkick]

Two Ospreys goal line dropouts dropkicked straight back over the bar tonight by the sharks - both from about 45m

If that does become a trend I suspect they'll tweak that law to ensure the team receiving the drop out has to go through at least one phase before they can attempt a drop kick.

Or just kick it shorter so your defence has a chance.

[ronk]

Two Ospreys goal line dropouts dropkicked straight back over the bar tonight by the sharks - both from about 45m

If that does become a trend I suspect they'll tweak that law to ensure the team receiving the drop out has to go through at least one phase before they can attempt a drop kick.

Like with free kicks.

Clever tactic, it's basically a free shot at goal if you have the players for it and the wind is favourable.

[fourthirtythree]

Two Ospreys goal line dropouts dropkicked straight back over the bar tonight by the sharks - both from about 45m

If that does become a trend I suspect they'll tweak that law to ensure the team receiving the drop out has to go through at least one phase before they can attempt a drop kick.

Like with free kicks.

Clever tactic, it's basically a free shot at goal if you have the players for it and the wind is favourable.

I was disappointed we didn't shape to try it roday. To do it effectively I think you'd need three players who could do it.

[wixfjord]

Rob Kearney v Clermont & JS v Leicester in 09 come to mind.

[Oldschoolsocks]

Half of those two guys aren’t on the books anymore

[cormac]

We haven't scored a drop goal since April 2017.

[fourthirtythree]

Pretty sure Ringrose could have it in his locker.

Probably of marginal use going forward so no focus on it. That Rob one was a thing of beauty, eight up there with Johnno's v Leicester.

[Fan with smartphone]

The combination of that law and the 50-22 means that when you attack from deep and get 2 passes out to 15/13/wing it’s hard to justify not kicking up the line. You just have to make sure you don’t kick too long, but other than that only good things can happen.

[ronk]

I was disappointed we didn't shape to try it roday. To do it effectively I think you'd need three players who could do it.

I'm glad Ruddock didn't try one. Would have backed Heaslip though back in the day.

[blockhead]

This new rule allowing tights to be worn by players.
Does it apply to us on the terraces?
Asking for a friend.

[hugonaut]

I was disappointed we didn't shape to try it roday. To do it effectively I think you'd need three players who could do it.

I'm glad Ruddock didn't try one. Would have backed Heaslip though back in the day.

Of all our forwards, I think I would back Cian first, then Baird. I've seen Cian hit huge dropgoals during warm-ups, well outside the 10m line. Strikes the ball really well. He's also got great soccer skills.

[ronk]

Nice. Maybe the covering a big area of the park to receive the goal line drop out would be his weakness.

[dropkick]

https://www.the42.ie/5022-kick-analysis ... 5-Oct2021/

[fourthirtythree]

Interesting data here and I know it's risky to read too much into such a short block of matches but Leinster lead the way on pretty much every attacking metric including, interestingly, offloads. Zebre are next for that though significantly down the table.
https://www.unitedrugby.com/statistics

Nearly every measure the next place is 10% or more behind.

It's also noticeable that our players are completely absent (well nearly...) from the individual tables

https://www.unitedrugby.com/statistics/players

We don't rely on a star runner, offloaded, try scorer but spread or around. Obviously we have a deeper squad so that is normally the case but I see the above as further evidence that we are evolving our style.

Eddie Jones said the other day that rugby was rebalancing from the situation where I'd you kicked more you won. That had definitely been the case for the past four of years. Ospreys win over Munster was straight out of the template for winning rugby the last few years.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... trial-laws

“So teams don’t necessarily have to kick more than the opposition to win. You can run more than the opposition to win. That balancing act, of where the game is, has become a little less clear.”

This seems to suit our relentless high tempo game. How well it stands up to the big packs slowing the game down will be interesting.

"because the referees have been refereeing the tackler rolling away very hard, and policing to a large extent the second man releasing, we’ve seen a lot more quick ball, and with quick ball we’ve seen defences under pressure …"
“If you’re good in attack, you get quick ball, and if you’re good in defence, you get a turnover. That’s the fascinating part of the game. But every time we have it good, we get slack, and the game morphs into a slower version of itself. So we might be at the peak of the game at the moment.”

So when we come round to 6N and European knockouts the game may become conservative again with referees taking the easy option of rewarding defence.

The well nearly for the individual players is an unfortunate one and the majority comes from one single match...

[Morf]

I feel like the choke tackle is being reduced in influence by refs too.
You need to hold them up longer and refs have started calling tackle (Craig Evans) to favour quicker play with no sign of a knee/elbow being down.

I once had a ref development officer tell me that a player being held up dropping to ground wasn't a tackle as a tackle had to be something done to you rather than something you did to yourself. Obviously that interpretation has changed.

[ronk]

Interesting data here and I know it's risky to read too much into such a short block of matches but Leinster lead the way on pretty much every attacking metric including, interestingly, offloads. Zebre are next for that though significantly down the table.
https://www.unitedrugby.com/statistics

Nearly every measure the next place is 10% or more behind.

It's also noticeable that our players are completely absent (well nearly...) from the individual tables

https://www.unitedrugby.com/statistics/players

We don't rely on a star runner, offloaded, try scorer but spread or around. Obviously we have a deeper squad so that is normally the case but I see the above as further evidence that we are evolving our style.

Eddie Jones said the other day that rugby was rebalancing from the situation where I'd you kicked more you won. That had definitely been the case for the past four of years. Ospreys win over Munster was straight out of the template for winning rugby the last few years.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... trial-laws

“So teams don’t necessarily have to kick more than the opposition to win. You can run more than the opposition to win. That balancing act, of where the game is, has become a little less clear.”

This seems to suit our relentless high tempo game. How well it stands up to the big packs slowing the game down will be interesting.

"because the referees have been refereeing the tackler rolling away very hard, and policing to a large extent the second man releasing, we’ve seen a lot more quick ball, and with quick ball we’ve seen defences under pressure …"
“If you’re good in attack, you get quick ball, and if you’re good in defence, you get a turnover. That’s the fascinating part of the game. But every time we have it good, we get slack, and the game morphs into a slower version of itself. So we might be at the peak of the game at the moment.”

So when we come round to 6N and European knockouts the game may become conservative again with referees taking the easy option of rewarding defence.

The well nearly for the individual players is an unfortunate one and the majority comes from one single match...

Some dodgy stats on that page, notably the lineout percentages. Edinburgh retaining 84% possession off kicks seems bonkers.

Leinster top in every attacking metric doesn't say a lot about the balance of our attack other than we do a lot of it and effectively. We've also lost the most turnover (77), Stormers have only made 48.

Not sure whether you'd want to be top or bottom of the defence scores.

[ronk]

Passing wingers.

It's often been the way that wingers could get away with being selfish players who ran head down.

A lot of the time now wingers are being brought into the game in different ways when attacking rather than just holding width or being strike runners. An example is the way Lowe or Jimmy O'Brien get used as 1st receiver in positions where there's a decision to make. Hansen does it too.

Obviously it's much harder to defend if you have to defend everything more often. As more players can do it there's a diminishing return in terms of the amount of quality ball each player gets, but there's also a reduction in the number of times a team can shoot or leave a dog leg without getting breeched, at the top level that's all important.

As their fortunes have risen we've seen fortunes decline for Larmour, Stockdale, Zebo.