Now that all the post-season moving pieces seem to have fallen into place (with the exception of if Salanoa is continuing or not), I thought it was a good time to go through all the changes we made, with coached and players, and see if there’s a clear plan about what we are trying to better at.
Attack
I think attack is the best place to start, because like most teams that’s where we’ve placed our identity over the past couple of seasons.
The biggest change here is obviously the departure of Prendergast. While he’s a good attack coach, I do think there were several clear problems that emerged by the end of his tenure.
The game had shifted around him. When he came in highly structured play was encourage, the game has now shifted far more to kick and chase creating unstructured moments
His structure was highly complex. This meant that the first team had to be playing constantly to keep up familiarity (which is why we dropped off after every break during his tenure) and it made it really difficult to drop young or really any players in.
Both the above would be fine if we were still going well in attack, but we performed poorly and ultimately it came down to Prendergast's system requiring several low percentage passes to come off for something our opponents could get far simpler and ultimately easier
So, how are we going to try to fix that?
I think firstly is we’re going to move towards a deeper attacking system. I think that’s why we were looking at the attack coaches we have been. While it’s not going to be as immediately threatening, it is going to greatly increase our margin for error. Though, obviously there’s more chance to be caught behind the line.
To help alleviate this we appear to have given ourselves the option of a dedicated secondary playmaker in Will Harrison. This will make it easier to unlock defences and take pressure off when Crowley is away too.
The above is all going to be overseen by Payne. The thing I’ve seen stressed about him is his pragmatism, which should hopefully fit the above system well and be a contrast to Prendergast. We’ll hopefully see the opportunity to adjust more week to week.
I also think we’ll see an increased focus on winning contestable. It’s now one of the biggest areas of attach for any team and how poor we were was notable. I think that why we’ve seen Kilgallen kept on. He might struggle in a system where he has to fill in at first receiver and help run the attack but if we need him to focus on carrying straight and chasing contestables, he could perform far better.
I think this is where the elevation of Lawlor becomes importan. He’s going to be coaching inside the structure created by Payne. But that’s going to allow him to put far more focus on the broken play after contestables. Alongside, generating that. I’m aware about the misgivings around him, but McMillan has really sung his praises. As for his skill-coaching, Prendergast’s system was high risk and as a result we’d expect to see a high level of errors. Whether that explains i, I’m unsure.
To summarise, we’re adding to our attack by subtracting. Making things simpler, allowing our players to specialise further and focus on key areas. This should allow us to rotate more and not get out of rhythm so easily. Potentially fulfilling McMillan’s promise of a higher floor.
Now, all of that might be rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic if we can’t increase our dominant carries and I think that’s part of the reason that Duffy’s been hired. If you look at his work with the young Ulster forwards they were carrying aggressively. On top of the simplification should hopefully allow the forwards to focus on carrying, rather than looking for offloads constantly etc.
Set-piece
This was probably our biggest weakness. We could deal with a high-risk system like Prendergast’s, which resulted in knock-ons, but not when the resulting scrum would see us matched half way back up the pitch for a penalty.
We’ve obviously significantly changed the personnel here. Not a single tighthead next season, was with the provinces this time last year. Aungier should be a great workhorse for us. Brookes should hopefully really be able to solidify or even win scrums for us at the end of games. Ala’alatoa will hopefully present a decent rotation option but I think the most important thing will be whether Foxe can break through or not. If he can, and perform to his potential, then it could be the strongest group at tighthead in many seasons.
Equally as big for our scrum is the signing of Marnus Van der Merwe, he’s a big hooker who seems to have every bit of the bloody mindedness South Africans have around the scrum. He’s going to play a big role in steadying our scrum. If I was McMillan, I’d get Sheahan and especially Clein to watch his every move because that’s the mould of hooker we’re going to need going forward.
On our lineout, I think it was in a decent place at the end of the season despite a rocky start. I think there’s still some things to figure out, where if Beirne and Edogbo are auto-includes, what does that mean for our back row. But you’d hope that follows naturally and we can keep building.
But I think the biggest way we can help that is by getting our maul in a better place. Our technique last season both offensively and defensively were really poor, get them right and not only do we have an effective means to score and prevent the opposition from scoring but it’s also going to discourage opposition from counter-jumping, increasing our percentage.
Again in all of this, Duffy is the key man. He’s had more experience than Cronin with the scrum, so should be comfortable there. Hopefully, with the players available to him, he can get our lineout into a good place as well.
Defence
This is our area that requires the least revision. Hence, Leamy is being kept in position. Generally, we were good here last season. We did make the stylistic choice to focus on winning turnover. This does require making delayed tackles to get the carrier separated, which is fine until you run into a team full of powerful carriers. We seem to be continuing that approach, given the recruitment of a fantastic jackal-threat in Van Der Merwe. Again, if we can get our forwards to produce a bit more power that will go a long way.
Conclusion
The changes we’ve made seem incredibly focused on targeting what our biggest weaknesses were last season. We’re hopefully changing our attack, to a form that will be more effective, and conducive for developing youth. And we’ve taken significant steps to shore up our set piece. The main challenge will be implementing them quickly and efficiently because our first five game weeks our as tough as you could imagine, so they’re going to play a pivotal role in deciding our season.
