JOE SCHMIDT WATCHES a lot of rugby.
It’s part of his job, of course, but it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that he’s obsessed with the game.
One of the things he enjoys is seeing what different teams are doing with their pre-planned moves from lineouts and scrums.
“I mostly steal them from other people so I’m always on the lookout, I always keep my eye out,” said Schmidt when asked how he comes up with Ireland’s moves.
Schmidt is one of the most intelligent rugby coaches in the world. Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO
“In the Mitre 10 Cup, they’ve always got a few good ones. There was a really good one that looked like the Highlanders play recently, I showed that to the coaches recently and said, ‘Hey, maybe we could do this.’ It’s hard to get patents on moves!
“Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t but it’s always nice when you do put them together. It’s nice when everyone knows their role and they come off.
“But the other coaching staff come up with some as well. I’ve come up with some incredibly poor moves in my time… they look really good on paper though.”
While Schmidt does tend to nick a few moves – every coach in the world does – he also has a genius for adding subtle tweaks to improve a play, and he is more than capable of creating his own.
Among the indicators of his creativity are the set-piece plays Ireland use, which involve pre-planned movements in which every player needs to be in a specific place at the right time to perform a designated task.
One, two, three, four, sometimes even five phases of organised attack from a set-piece, with many moving parts.
The detail is always impressive but it’s also fascinating to see how Schmidt develops his plays over the course of months and years.
Jacob Stockdale’s try against the All Blacks was a fine example, as Ireland utilised a play they’d had in their locker for several years, nailing the execution to create the space Stockdale exploited.
The CJ Stander try in Twickenham to help Ireland win the Grand Slam was another example, a move first used against the English three years prior.
There’s the dummy loop play that has morphed since Schmidt’s Leinster first used it in 2012.
But sometimes Schmidt makes tweaks in the space of a week and while they don’t always work out as intended, these alterations give us insight into the high-level workings of his rugby brain.
The past two weekends have provided examples.
Below, we see Ireland launching a two-phase ‘power play’ from the right-hand touchline during their win against Argentina.
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Ireland use a six-man lineout in this instance, with flanker Dan Leavy positioned out in the backline to make a carry.
It’s a good lineout call from Iain Henderson, allowing him to win the ball in between two contesting Pumas pods and deliver it hot off the top.
Out-half Johnny Sexton receives a crisp pass from Marmion and then throws a tunnel pass in front of Keith Earls [11 below] and behind Bundee Aki [12].
Will Addison [13] is the recipient of Sexton’s pass in between the two decoys, but we should just note that Earls immediately begins to move back towards to the right touchline after he’s completed his initial role [as indicated below].
Similarly, it’s worth noting what Ireland’s props do after their involvement in the initial lineout.
Tadhg Furlong [white below] and Jack McGrath [yellow] immediately move back towards the touchline as the rest of Ireland’s pack begins working infield.
Going back to the ball, Addison moves it onto openside Leavy.
Now this isn’t a new Schmidt power play and some people may remember that Ireland scored off it against Canada at the 2015 World Cup, Dave Kearney finishing off a two-phase beauty.
There is a subtle difference this time around against Argentina, with Leavy positioned further infield – rather than out on the left touchline as Sean O’Brien was against Canada.
It means two fewer passes, and Leavy setting the ball up a little more infield. We’ll come back to this point.
Leavy carries the ball into contact along the left-hand 15-metre line, with Jordan Larmour arriving to clear out if required, then we see Addison [13 below] acting as the scrum-half just as Stander also arrives across to resource the breakdown.
With Addison serving as the halfback, Ireland bounce back against the grain to their right in the second phase of this power play.
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Addison passes to Marmion, now in the role of first receiver, and the Connacht man screens a pass behind James Ryan and Iain Henderson to Sexton.
As we can see below, Ryan [white] and Henderson [yellow] are both viable options to receive a pass from Marmion, running aggressively with their hands up, the kind of ‘animation’ that Schmidt demands.
Sexton [green above] is the always the target, but Ryan and Henderson’s job is to distract defenders even if only for a split second, buying Ireland time and space further out.
Sexton receives the ball from Marmion for a second time, before passing to Peter O’Mahony and running a loop line around him [white below].
Importantly, O’Mahony’s running line is square up the pitch [yellow above], meaning he’s not drifting to the right, therefore asking more questions of the Pumas defenders and inviting them to sit down on him.
The pass back to Sexton is on O’Mahony’s inside shoulder, allowing Sexton to receive the ball back rapidly as he moves cross-field.
The next element of the power play is another screen pass, with Rory Best running the front-door option this time [green below].
We can see Aki [12] is out the back of Best ready to receive Sexton’s pass, but the running line from the Ireland hooker is important.
He’s running at the inside shoulder of Argentina’s Javier Ortega Desio [8], aiming to entice him to bite down on Best.
As we can see below, Best achieves as much.
Desio’s head is already swivelling to pick up Aki out the back, but he has sat onto his heels and respected Best’s run, biting in on him [blue above].
Desio’s delayed drift means Aki can burst outside him and upfield, leaving Ireland suddenly in a highly-promising situation.
Nicolás Sánchez [blue above] is in a hugely exposed situation on the left edge of Argentina’s defence, with Aki hurtling forward.
The Ireland centre has Earls [11], McGrath [17] and Furlong [3] outside him in a clear overlap.
Now, Argentina left wing Ramiro Moyano is approaching up from the backfield out of shot above, but if Aki can really fix Sánchez, Ireland are going to be in an even more promising situation.
If we roll back a few seconds to the start of this second phase, we can see that Ireland’s initial attack off the lineout has drawn Argentina fullback Emiliano Boffelli [white below] up onto the right edge.
While Moyano is advancing up from the left as Aki gets outside Desio, Boffelli is now having to sprint flat out back across the pitch as Ireland move the ball all the way right.
The point is that if Aki can fix Sánchez, there is a real opportunity for Ireland.
While McGrath and Furlong aren’t the quickest finishers outside Earls – who wouldn’t have enjoyed seeing Furlong have a go! – Earls’ evasion skills and pace would have given him a chance to beat Moyano and then perhaps even link with Marmion running an inside support line.
Either way, Ireland miss the opportunity as Aki fails to fix Sánchez, allowing him to sprint out on the drift [blue below] and make a good tackle on Earls, as Moyano comes up from the backfield [white] to cover outside.
Ireland do still gain 20 metres or so from the starting point of the lineout, but there was scope to do more damage after the good build-up work.
That said, there is more at play here than Ireland looking to break the Pumas down.
A try is the aim every time Ireland attack with ball in hand but Schmidt is also attempting to lay a trap for the All Blacks here.
While the Kiwis have sometimes insisted they don’t do huge amounts of opposition analysis, they would almost certainly have been aware of this power play before Ireland utilised it against the Pumas.
So it’s likely they would have noted it with interest, particularly given that Leavy carried a little further infield than has been the case in some previous incarnations.
Lo and behold, Ireland rolled the power play out in the 15th minute against the All Blacks on Saturday, launching from the left-hand touchline this time, and Schmidt threw another new tweak at the Kiwis.
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The lineout win is scrappy as Kieran Read applies major pressure but Stander gathers in the ball and pops it off to Marmion, who launches Ireland’s attack again.
The constituent parts are familiar even if this comes from the opposite side of the pitch, with Sexton throwing the tunnel pass between Aki and left wing Stockdale to outside centre Garry Ringrose.
Again, we can see the props, Furlong and Cian Healy this time, moving back towards the touchline, while Stockdale also shifts back that way after being a decoy outside Sexton.
Because of the ever-so-slight delay from the lineout, Ringrose is closer to the Kiwi defence than was the case with Addison against the Pumas, but he does superbly.
Ringrose [13 above] darts to Ryan Crotty’s outside shoulder, threatening with his acceleration and forcing Jack Goodhue to worry about potentially having to turn in for the tackle.
It keeps Goodhue’s head turned in [white above] and means he can’t actually eye up Josh van der Flier, who is thundering forward on an ultra-aggressive direct line [green].
With Ringrose releasing the ball, Goodhue only turns his eyes to van der Flier at the last split second and, while he’s done well to keep his body pointing at the Ireland flanker, he gets his head on the ‘wrong’ side of the tackle, leaving himself in a weak tackling position against a powerful man moving at speed.
While Goodhue clings on with one hand, the result is a major gainline dent for Ireland, before Rob Kearney and Stander resource the breakdown, Stander doing a fine job of removing the turnover threat of Ardie Savea.
Ringrose acts as scrum-half and now we see Ireland’s tweak.
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One detail to notice as Ringrose passes is the animation from Earls out on the right.
The experienced wing is brilliant in this aspect of the game and we can see him attempting to add even the slightest distraction for the Kiwi defence.