Oom Rugby

Hi guys. It has not been a great Super Rugby year for SA so far, but the Kings give us a beautiful bright spot in the clouds when they last week beat the Waratahs in Sydney, and this week come home to smash the Rebels in PE!

Why is it beautiful? I don’t say the Kings is going to win Super Rugby, but if we look at their small resource and how nobody give them a chance, then it is wonderful achievements against odds. And guys, it is beautiful because it is a victory of coaching. Deon Davids and his staff has brought together a group of supposing nobodies and journeymen and moulded them together into a professional rugby team. We must nod our hat to Deon, and I promise you these guys is not nobodies anymore…

Anyway, today we can look at some moments from the Rebels game that I find interesting, because it is small signs of good people doing a very good job.

First let us talk about defensive attitude. Below we can see a Rebels counter down the left – X mark the spot where the ruck will form. We can see the King’s defence is scattered.

But few seconds later we see below how good the scramble was. Kings already has five men in the line and two back on kick defence. Do not take this for granted! It is one thing to have defensive systems but it is another thing to have players who is hungry and fit enough to make that systems work.

What we are looking at in this picture above is a group of drilled players who has excellent team culture and excellent conditioning. If we say it another way – they know what they must do, they have practiced it a lot, and they fit enough to execute it under extreme circumstance.

This next moment below I find interesting and I will tell you in a moment why. It is a Kings ruck down the left hand side. The outside senter Klaasen carried the ball into contact and now two more Kings is cleaning the Rebels off the ball.

Who is doing the cleaning? It is the wing Mapimpi and the fullback Banda. They showed excellent textbook technique to get low, spine-in-line, and powerful leg-drive the jackals off the ball.

What is more interesting? This is a first-phase, wide play from a scrum that was on the right-hand side of the field. So in other words, the plan was for the backs to go wide from the scrum, the plan was to run away from their own forwards and try make metres (they made 30m) and the plan was for the backs to clean the ruck themself.

This is a team that is being coached technically well, which allow them a wider range of options in how they attack.

Another slick attack moment in the picture below. This is something we also take for granted but we do not see it as often as we should in SA rugby. It is a three-man group, taking the ball to the line at pace, dictating to a fixed defence, with three options for the carrier, Van der Sluys – run, pass left, or pass right.

It is the simplicity of rugby but also the complexity because it take a lot of hard work to get this shape and timing right. Hard work on the training field, and hard work in the match to realign quickly during the phases to create this shape for your scrumhalf that you then execute with good rhythm.

And when the Kings was face with this kind of phase-play by the Rebels, they were up with the task. The Rebels did not score one single try. Here below we see a 4-on-1 threat develop down the left for the Kings.

But while the tackle happen and the ruck form we can see below how quickly the Kings defenders “fold” around the ruck to get numbers up. To fold properly your players must have anticipation, trust, communication, understanding of roles, conditioning, and desire.

The Kings has had a few problems this year slipping individual tackles and other issues, but as a group we can see that they recycle defenders well. Many times we see them recognise where the threat will be and then they get men around the ruck to set a line. Again, that is good coaching, and good player attitude.

I know that the Rebels at the moment is very poor and played very badly in this match – they not a good way to judge a team. But I am looking past that at the solid fundamentals that we can perceive in the Kings so far this year.

If we look at some of their scores and performances this season we must applaud coach Davids and the Kings group for doing a lot with a little.

Soon the doors of this rugby factory will close again, but not before they remind us of what can be achieved when good people do good work.

Groete!