SOON AFTER JOINING Leinster, Jacques Nienaber said that the only defensive statistics he really cares about are tries conceded and points conceded.
Judging by those metrics, Leinster’s defence has regressed this season.
Last season in the URC, Leinster conceded an average of 2 tries per game and just 14.3 points per game.
This season so far, they’re conceding an average of 2.9 tries and 21.2 points per game in the URC.
In the Champions Cup, Leinster conceded an average of 1.7 tries and 13 points per game last season.
But this season, they’re conceding an average of three tries and 22.3 points per game.
Leinster’s numbers are still better than the URC and Champions Cup averages, but not by a huge amount.
The numbers back up the impression from watching Leinster games – that they have been less effective in defence.
Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber, who coaches their defence. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
And yet, there was one element of Leinster’s defence that arguably won them the game against La Rochelle last weekend.
The Leinster scramble defence was remarkable. The ‘scramble’ part of defence refers to times when the initial line has been broken, or the opposition has broken away against the run of play, and the defence has to make a last-gasp effort to deny them a score.
Leinster needed their scramble defence to keep them afloat in the third quarter of the game, when it looked like La Rochelle could cut loose.
Leinster are down to 14 players early in the second half, with Joe McCarthy still in the sin bin, when La Rochelle get up a head of steam.
Davit Niniashvili surges through the Leinster defence in this instance.
We can see that Leinster outside centre Rieko Ioane moves on a lateral line in defence here, jockeying out towards the touchline.
That leaves space on his inside shoulder for Niniashvili to attack.
Generally under Nienaber, we have seen Leinster defenders looking to stay square and advance upfield, even when they’re numbers down.
That would mean Ioane coming forward, as highlighted below, looking to land an aggressive front-on tackle on Niniashvili.
Perhaps Ioane is still getting used to the defensive system in Leinster, or maybe he is worried about tighthead prop Thomas Clarkson possibly being exposed in the defensive line outside him, but he doesn’t come forward and his drifting line leaves space for Niniashvili to offload out of Ioane and James Ryan’s stretching tackle.
The offload finds scrum-half Nolann le Garrec, and his fiendish footwork takes him around Clarkson and JJ Kenny.
As Jamison Gibson-Park starts corner-flagging for Leinster, fullback Andrew Osborne closes up assertively from the backfield to tackle le Garrec, who opts against sending wing Jack Nowell down the right touchline.
Still, La Rochelle make more ground on the next phase as lock Will Skelton offloads to hooker Tolu Latu.
Skelton is a huge man with the power to ride tackles and keep the ball alive, but Leinster will have been disappointed with their inability to tag the ball or ball-carriers’ arms in tackles more often against La Rochelle.
The French side completed a whopping 22 offloads against Leinster and while that is down to their attacking skills, Leinster will surely feel they could have prevented some of them.
In this instance, Leinster lock Ryan can’t tie up the ball in Skelton’s right arm, with the La Rochelle man getting that arm free to offload to Latu.
This happened repeatedly, even with Leinster getting two defenders into many tackles, so it’s a technical skill they’ll probably put some focus on moving forward.
As it is, La Rochelle have built up major momentum and kept forcing Leinster to retreat.
They pull the trigger and look for the kill two phases later.
Advertisement
This pass from Antoine Hastoy puts La Rochelle into a highly promising position.
Hastoy bypasses Dillyn Leyds, the more obvious recipient who attracts Robbie Henshaw up and in onto him, and fizzes the ball wider to centre Simeli Daunivucu.
La Rochelle suddenly have a try-scoring chance.
With Daunivucu getting outside Henshaw, it looks like La Rochelle will get a 4-on-3 opportunity to finish.
Leinster’s Tommy O’Brien is closing in on Daunivucu [red below], meaning Sam Prendergast will have to close up on Levani Botia [blue].
Meanwhile, Osborne [yellow above] is working hard to get across the backfield after his tackle on le Garrec a couple of phases before.
In this moment, it appears that La Rochelle will be able to make the 4-on-3 become a 2-on-1 against Osborne.
However, Leinster hooker Dan Sheehan [red below] shows excellent work-rate to cornerflag after the ball has been passed across his by Hastoy to Daunivucu.
This is part of Leinster’s defensive system, with defenders close to the ruck switching into a ‘catch-up’ role once the ball has been moved beyond them. Their next job is to work back underneath the main defensive line at speed in case Leinster are beaten on the edge.
And in this instance, Sheehan’s effort is vital as he can connect with Osborne, preventing La Rochelle from having that 2-on-1 chance to finish.
La Rochelle’s Ihaia West has number eight Grégory Alldritt outside him and perhaps if it was a fast wing, he would be keener to give that player on the edge a chance to go for the corner.
As it is, West decides to dummy a pass to Alldritt and duck back to Osborne’s inside.
Osborne reads West’s intentions well and checks to scrag him with his left arm just as Sheehan arrives to tackle the La Rochelle man too.
Having realised he’s not going to be able to beat Osborne on the inside, West attempts an offload to Allrditt, but it’s a wild one and the La Rochelle skipper can’t hold it.
Leinster survive thanks to the scramble from Osborne and Sheehan.
Just over two minutes later, 14-man Leinster need to dig in again as La Rochelle find more space.
With La Rochelle launching an attack from the left touchline in the moment below, we’ve picked out Prendergast [red] alongside the ruck, as well as Jerry Cahir [yellow] and Ryan [blue] a little further out in the defensive line.
Those three Leinster men will be key in denying La Rochelle over on the other side of the pitch 10 seconds later.
Again, there are defensive issues here for Leinster with their spacing in midfield and the fact that four of their backs are either in or close to the ruck, leaving them short on the other edge, but the scramble delivers again.
La Rochelle shift the ball towards their right edge with a string of passes and offloads, but we can see that Prendergast is working across behind the main defensive line as fullback Osborne closes up.
Ryan and Cahir have switched into that catch-up role after the ball has been moved beyond them.
With the ball arriving in Alldritt’s hands, Prendergast has swept across the width of the pitch to be the last defender.
Alldritt opts to pass inside to prop Reda Wardi, but Ryan makes a big effort to drop in low and bring him to ground five metres out.
Wardi then offloads to Nowell, but Cahir has worked hard to be in position to hammer into the La Rochelle wing.
It’s a big effort from Cahir and Leinster, but the job isn’t complete.
La Rochelle recycle and swing the ball to the other side, where they have another promising attacking situation. In the moment below, O’Brien [blue] is looking exposed out on the right edge of Leinster’s defence.
But Gibson-Park [yellow below] and Osborne [pink] are working hard to get across, fill space, and help O’Brien to cover the situation.
Gibson-Park and Osborne ensure it’s a 3-on-3 scenario, with Osborne tackling West on his inside shoulder, assisted by the hard-working Gibson-Park.
And once they have West on the ground, Leinster sense an opportunity.
Gibson-Park initially looks to jackal for the ball but O’Brien, having worked back, then leads the ‘barge’ from Leinster as Josh van der Flier – who has also worked hard on a catch-up line – piling in behind him along with Gibson-Park.
What looks like a try-scoring chance for La Rochelle ends up with a Leinster turnover.
Still, the onslaught continues as La Rochelle take a quick lineout from the clearing Leinster kick.
As we can see above, Osborne assists van der Flier in a tackle on Leyds near Leinster’s left touchline.
Having dealt with the threat there, Osborne [red below] then instantly drops into the backfield to begin swinging to the far side, with Prendergast [blue] working ahead of him to the right-hand side of Leinster’s backfield.
Fatigue is setting in now. With the quickly-taken lineout, the ball has been in play for nearly three minutes – a very long passage of non-stop play in rugby – but they find one last effort in their bid to deny La Rochelle.
The French side carry in midfield, then slickly move the ball to Leinster’s right again.
Gibson-Park [yellow below] once again switches into catch-up mode as the ball is shifted beyond him.
Prendergast [blue above] and Osborne [red] are working across in the backfield as O’Brien leads the linespeed, looking to stop the ball before La Rochelle can get it to the edge.
But Daunivucu has the composure to get his pass way before O’Brien can hit him.
And with West drawing in the advancing Prendergast before passing to Niniashvili, La Rochelle get back into another promising position.
Now, this is certainly a chance they will feel they blew.
But it’s important to note that without the pace and work-rate from Gibson-Park, Niniashvili would have a good chance to finish in the left corner himself. The Leinster scrum-half’s presence forces Niniashvili to step back inside.
Gibson-Park’s effort also means Osborne is in play to potentially tackle Niniashvili, who has to pass inside.
That’s key in any scramble – at least forcing the attack to make one extra pass. Every extra pass heightens the chance of an attacking error. Leinster don’t seem to be willing to give up on seemingly lost causes.
Niniashvili has both Hastoy and Wardi ready to seal the deal inside but the pass is a little high and both support players end up on top of each other, resulting in a knock-on.
It’s a butchering from La Rochelle, of course, but 14-man Leinster do their best to complicate matters with their scramble defence.
And with that, Leinster are restored to 15 players as McCarthy returns from the sin bin.
It means that the 20 minutes of the game in which Leinster have been down to 14, including O’Brien’s first-half yellow card, have ended 0-0. And this scramble effort after half time proves vital in allowing Leinster to edge a titanic tussle of a game.
Nienaber clearly has work to do with Leinster’s defence and will have been disappointed to concede 12 linebreaks to an admittedly on-form La Rochelle attack.
Leinster have gone from conceding 3 linebreaks per game in the Champions Cup last season to 5.4 per game this season, so he’ll be looking to remedy that regression. And we know that Nienaber hates his team conceding tries and points.
But knowing that you can rely on a relentless scramble is reassuring.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
18 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
Leinster D conceding more but scramble key against La Rochelle
SOON AFTER JOINING Leinster, Jacques Nienaber said that the only defensive statistics he really cares about are tries conceded and points conceded.
Judging by those metrics, Leinster’s defence has regressed this season.
Last season in the URC, Leinster conceded an average of 2 tries per game and just 14.3 points per game.
This season so far, they’re conceding an average of 2.9 tries and 21.2 points per game in the URC.
In the Champions Cup, Leinster conceded an average of 1.7 tries and 13 points per game last season.
But this season, they’re conceding an average of three tries and 22.3 points per game.
Leinster’s numbers are still better than the URC and Champions Cup averages, but not by a huge amount.
The numbers back up the impression from watching Leinster games – that they have been less effective in defence.
And yet, there was one element of Leinster’s defence that arguably won them the game against La Rochelle last weekend.
The Leinster scramble defence was remarkable. The ‘scramble’ part of defence refers to times when the initial line has been broken, or the opposition has broken away against the run of play, and the defence has to make a last-gasp effort to deny them a score.
Leinster needed their scramble defence to keep them afloat in the third quarter of the game, when it looked like La Rochelle could cut loose.
Leinster are down to 14 players early in the second half, with Joe McCarthy still in the sin bin, when La Rochelle get up a head of steam.
Davit Niniashvili surges through the Leinster defence in this instance.
We can see that Leinster outside centre Rieko Ioane moves on a lateral line in defence here, jockeying out towards the touchline.
That leaves space on his inside shoulder for Niniashvili to attack.
Generally under Nienaber, we have seen Leinster defenders looking to stay square and advance upfield, even when they’re numbers down.
That would mean Ioane coming forward, as highlighted below, looking to land an aggressive front-on tackle on Niniashvili.
Perhaps Ioane is still getting used to the defensive system in Leinster, or maybe he is worried about tighthead prop Thomas Clarkson possibly being exposed in the defensive line outside him, but he doesn’t come forward and his drifting line leaves space for Niniashvili to offload out of Ioane and James Ryan’s stretching tackle.
The offload finds scrum-half Nolann le Garrec, and his fiendish footwork takes him around Clarkson and JJ Kenny.
As Jamison Gibson-Park starts corner-flagging for Leinster, fullback Andrew Osborne closes up assertively from the backfield to tackle le Garrec, who opts against sending wing Jack Nowell down the right touchline.
Still, La Rochelle make more ground on the next phase as lock Will Skelton offloads to hooker Tolu Latu.
Skelton is a huge man with the power to ride tackles and keep the ball alive, but Leinster will have been disappointed with their inability to tag the ball or ball-carriers’ arms in tackles more often against La Rochelle.
The French side completed a whopping 22 offloads against Leinster and while that is down to their attacking skills, Leinster will surely feel they could have prevented some of them.
In this instance, Leinster lock Ryan can’t tie up the ball in Skelton’s right arm, with the La Rochelle man getting that arm free to offload to Latu.
This happened repeatedly, even with Leinster getting two defenders into many tackles, so it’s a technical skill they’ll probably put some focus on moving forward.
As it is, La Rochelle have built up major momentum and kept forcing Leinster to retreat.
They pull the trigger and look for the kill two phases later.
This pass from Antoine Hastoy puts La Rochelle into a highly promising position.
Hastoy bypasses Dillyn Leyds, the more obvious recipient who attracts Robbie Henshaw up and in onto him, and fizzes the ball wider to centre Simeli Daunivucu.
La Rochelle suddenly have a try-scoring chance.
With Daunivucu getting outside Henshaw, it looks like La Rochelle will get a 4-on-3 opportunity to finish.
Leinster’s Tommy O’Brien is closing in on Daunivucu [red below], meaning Sam Prendergast will have to close up on Levani Botia [blue].
Meanwhile, Osborne [yellow above] is working hard to get across the backfield after his tackle on le Garrec a couple of phases before.
In this moment, it appears that La Rochelle will be able to make the 4-on-3 become a 2-on-1 against Osborne.
However, Leinster hooker Dan Sheehan [red below] shows excellent work-rate to cornerflag after the ball has been passed across his by Hastoy to Daunivucu.
This is part of Leinster’s defensive system, with defenders close to the ruck switching into a ‘catch-up’ role once the ball has been moved beyond them. Their next job is to work back underneath the main defensive line at speed in case Leinster are beaten on the edge.
And in this instance, Sheehan’s effort is vital as he can connect with Osborne, preventing La Rochelle from having that 2-on-1 chance to finish.
La Rochelle’s Ihaia West has number eight Grégory Alldritt outside him and perhaps if it was a fast wing, he would be keener to give that player on the edge a chance to go for the corner.
As it is, West decides to dummy a pass to Alldritt and duck back to Osborne’s inside.
Osborne reads West’s intentions well and checks to scrag him with his left arm just as Sheehan arrives to tackle the La Rochelle man too.
Having realised he’s not going to be able to beat Osborne on the inside, West attempts an offload to Allrditt, but it’s a wild one and the La Rochelle skipper can’t hold it.
Leinster survive thanks to the scramble from Osborne and Sheehan.
Just over two minutes later, 14-man Leinster need to dig in again as La Rochelle find more space.
With La Rochelle launching an attack from the left touchline in the moment below, we’ve picked out Prendergast [red] alongside the ruck, as well as Jerry Cahir [yellow] and Ryan [blue] a little further out in the defensive line.
Those three Leinster men will be key in denying La Rochelle over on the other side of the pitch 10 seconds later.
Again, there are defensive issues here for Leinster with their spacing in midfield and the fact that four of their backs are either in or close to the ruck, leaving them short on the other edge, but the scramble delivers again.
La Rochelle shift the ball towards their right edge with a string of passes and offloads, but we can see that Prendergast is working across behind the main defensive line as fullback Osborne closes up.
Ryan and Cahir have switched into that catch-up role after the ball has been moved beyond them.
With the ball arriving in Alldritt’s hands, Prendergast has swept across the width of the pitch to be the last defender.
Alldritt opts to pass inside to prop Reda Wardi, but Ryan makes a big effort to drop in low and bring him to ground five metres out.
Wardi then offloads to Nowell, but Cahir has worked hard to be in position to hammer into the La Rochelle wing.
It’s a big effort from Cahir and Leinster, but the job isn’t complete.
La Rochelle recycle and swing the ball to the other side, where they have another promising attacking situation. In the moment below, O’Brien [blue] is looking exposed out on the right edge of Leinster’s defence.
But Gibson-Park [yellow below] and Osborne [pink] are working hard to get across, fill space, and help O’Brien to cover the situation.
Gibson-Park and Osborne ensure it’s a 3-on-3 scenario, with Osborne tackling West on his inside shoulder, assisted by the hard-working Gibson-Park.
And once they have West on the ground, Leinster sense an opportunity.
Gibson-Park initially looks to jackal for the ball but O’Brien, having worked back, then leads the ‘barge’ from Leinster as Josh van der Flier – who has also worked hard on a catch-up line – piling in behind him along with Gibson-Park.
What looks like a try-scoring chance for La Rochelle ends up with a Leinster turnover.
Still, the onslaught continues as La Rochelle take a quick lineout from the clearing Leinster kick.
As we can see above, Osborne assists van der Flier in a tackle on Leyds near Leinster’s left touchline.
Having dealt with the threat there, Osborne [red below] then instantly drops into the backfield to begin swinging to the far side, with Prendergast [blue] working ahead of him to the right-hand side of Leinster’s backfield.
Fatigue is setting in now. With the quickly-taken lineout, the ball has been in play for nearly three minutes – a very long passage of non-stop play in rugby – but they find one last effort in their bid to deny La Rochelle.
The French side carry in midfield, then slickly move the ball to Leinster’s right again.
Gibson-Park [yellow below] once again switches into catch-up mode as the ball is shifted beyond him.
Prendergast [blue above] and Osborne [red] are working across in the backfield as O’Brien leads the linespeed, looking to stop the ball before La Rochelle can get it to the edge.
But Daunivucu has the composure to get his pass way before O’Brien can hit him.
And with West drawing in the advancing Prendergast before passing to Niniashvili, La Rochelle get back into another promising position.
Now, this is certainly a chance they will feel they blew.
But it’s important to note that without the pace and work-rate from Gibson-Park, Niniashvili would have a good chance to finish in the left corner himself. The Leinster scrum-half’s presence forces Niniashvili to step back inside.
Gibson-Park’s effort also means Osborne is in play to potentially tackle Niniashvili, who has to pass inside.
That’s key in any scramble – at least forcing the attack to make one extra pass. Every extra pass heightens the chance of an attacking error. Leinster don’t seem to be willing to give up on seemingly lost causes.
Niniashvili has both Hastoy and Wardi ready to seal the deal inside but the pass is a little high and both support players end up on top of each other, resulting in a knock-on.
It’s a butchering from La Rochelle, of course, but 14-man Leinster do their best to complicate matters with their scramble defence.
And with that, Leinster are restored to 15 players as McCarthy returns from the sin bin.
It means that the 20 minutes of the game in which Leinster have been down to 14, including O’Brien’s first-half yellow card, have ended 0-0. And this scramble effort after half time proves vital in allowing Leinster to edge a titanic tussle of a game.
Nienaber clearly has work to do with Leinster’s defence and will have been disappointed to concede 12 linebreaks to an admittedly on-form La Rochelle attack.
Leinster have gone from conceding 3 linebreaks per game in the Champions Cup last season to 5.4 per game this season, so he’ll be looking to remedy that regression. And we know that Nienaber hates his team conceding tries and points.
But knowing that you can rely on a relentless scramble is reassuring.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Analysis Champions Cup la rochelle Leinster Numbers Down Scramble