Northampton Saints
News: A Letter To Mr Mallinder
By Jonathan Stockham
November 6 2012
Dear Mr Mallinder,
When I were but a lad, I was in the Air Cadets and learned to shoot rifles, to quite a good standard. I then carried that on in the RAF and was quite a mean shot. I was taught the principles of accuracy, a disciplined yet fanatical repetition of the right technique whilst being in a state of near coma-like relaxation combined with a steely determination to hit the very centre of a distant target and beat the score of the person next to me. It is a bit like the preparation of a goal kicker aiming a penalty or conversion on a rugby field. (See Wilkinson J, strange body position, goal kicking, rugby).
When I were also a lad, I played a bit of rugby. Due to differential rates of growth, I seemed to play most of the positions on a rugby field. The season when I was winger I had to throw in at the line out. That’s the way it was when rugby was in black and white. If I threw not straight, even allowing for a howling gale off the Firth of Clyde, the rugby master would bellow at me and make sure after the game that I knew my failings. I rarely got it wrong.
Then, next season I played scrum half. This was obviously before my love affair with deep fried Mars Bars began after which I was condemned to the front row! Putting in at the scrum again had to accurate and precise and down the middle of the tunnel. Why? Because if it wasn’t, the referee blew his whistle and the rugby master bellowed.
Similarly accuracy and discipline was required of the stand-off in kicking off to restart the game. 99 times out of 100 the ball was kicked in front of the pack and just beyond the 10 yard line (which was subsequently outlawed by the IRB after a committee of inquiry headed by Paddy O’Brien’s grandfather and renamed the 10 metre line). We’d probably catch it, a good old fashioned maul would then develop and sometimes our pack would keep the ball and set up an attack or their pack might win it but get stopped by ours long enough for the ref to get bored and blow the whistle for something else to happen. The ball, however,was still 10 to 15 metres inside the opposition half.
When the other lot kicked off, we were sufficiently well drilled to watch the ball and move to where it would land. Someone would catch it (usually Robert Logan because he was tall) and the rest of us would gather round to await the crash and driving maul. We were also alert to the odd occasion when the kick was switched (Kelvinside Academy were annoyingly good at that) and the fat boys all had to scamper across the pitch to the far wing and wade in to save Wee Davie Maitland whose knees were knocking so hard that the grey seals off the beach at Doonfoot would clap in reply.
So Mr Mallinder, I get really puzzled by the way Saints kick or receive at restarts. When the opposition kick long we seem to cope. Number 8 catches, passes to a kicker and the ball goes up field, usually for the opposition to throw in but on exciting days, our backs get a run! Accurate and disciplined for the most part and occasionally exciting. But when they kick short just beyond the 10 yard metre line, we don’t seem to have a plan. In recent games we have watched their big boys run and catch the ball out of the grasp of our big boys. I seem to remember a try from one such restart!
When we kick off it is much, much worse, worthy of detention on a Saturday morning or 1000 lines. Whoever has been handed the Holy Grail (aka the 10 shirt) either kicks very long down the pitch and we watch while the opposition catch, then run or kick it back to where we started or we kick it just a bit too long (out of reach of our chasers) and watch while the opposition catch, then run or kick it back to behind where we started. It is a process often guaranteed to give possession straight back to the other team. What they do with it is up to them but the significant fact is that we no longer have the ball.
Therefore Mr Mallinder, whilst I fully recognise that you and Nobby will know a lot more about this subject than most and that schoolboy rugby is light years away from the elevated standard of the Premiership, if a bunch of 12 – 14 year olds can apply the required levels of discipline and accuracy to restart a game of rugby and more often than not keep the ball, why on earth can’t Saints?
Yours in support
Jonathan Stockham
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“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Benjamin Franklin
Tetleys Block F E143
Top of the League 2014-2015 Season
And you've asked the big question, the one that has been troubling my mind for many a season - at least, since Bruza left us.
The Amazing (yet to be confirmed) New Wilson has a hint of Bruza about his play, but the one asset that Waikato's finest had aplenty was intelligent generalship. A quick mind, a lot of experience in the Reihana rugby brain.
It seems we don't have the same degree of nouse when restarts and kick-offs happen.
I await Mr M's response with heightening curiosity!
*I could agree with you - but then we'd both be wrong...*
The scrum half is the easy one, it is not that they cannot put the ball in straight is that they choose not too because they can get away with it and it gives them an advantage, but I am sure you knew that anyway.
The line out is more complicated, back in the good old days it was merely a matter of throwing the ball in straight to probably around three different positions and the opposition had little idea of where it was going even with the most basic of line out calls.
Now every team will have in depth analysis of how others operate there is a mind blowing number of calls and probably most significantly the timing of the throw is dictated by the line out not the hooker. To get an idea of how hard that is trying throwing a dart or playing a pool shoot or taking a putt exactly when someone else tells you to, not when you are ready. It always amazes me how well they can hit an area in space that two six foot something guys can put one six foot seven guy into on demand.
The kick off is even more interesting, do you all out to try and win the ball back or is territorial advantage and possession a good result? If you try to win the ball but fail you give away territory where as if go longer you can probably force them to either box kick or give you a lineout somewhere between the 22 and the 10 metre line. I really don’t see it as a simple one is right one is wrong situation.
Having said that it does remain a very weak part of the Saints game both in receiving and taking kick offs. However I am sure Jim will put us all right assuming he is no busier at work than I am at the minute.
I hope that makes sense, medication not due till later.
Quote:Matthew
We could try the trick Sarries tried against us a few times recently and stick a couple of blocking players between the player catching the ball and anybody from the opposition trying to compete for it. Seemed to work OK for them....
We have tried it i think, but we get penalised and they get an immediate return of 3 points thereby nullifying whatever points we had just managed to garner. Possibly we don't do it as well (ie, with cunning deception).
Quote:ajack
do you all out to try and win the ball back or is territorial advantage and possession a good result?
That probably varies as to whom your playing against too.
You can't always get what you want, But if you try sometimes well you might find, You get what you need.
Richards/Jagger
Defensive line out 5m = chuck it very long
Defensive lineout up to 10 metres = front ball
Between the 10metres= back ball
Attacking lineout 10m-22=some variation of middle and back ball
Red Zone=middle ball, straight or shift drive
Virtually every team in the AP plays that pattern with the odd novelty front ball or the extra long over the 15m. Teams that are getting picked off drop their numbers.
Stockers, I liked that a lot!
No alcohol for January. I'm a dryathlete in aid of cancer research.
Dryathlon
I don't think its an issue every game though. Its just one of those glaringly obvious failings when it does occur (like the flyhalf missing pens
) which is why it receives such focus.Saint til I die
Quote:Howlin
I agree Bonso. As with a lot of our kicking tactics. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can see why they do it and bow to their superior knowledge and analysis. I do often have problems with the way we deal with oppo restarts tho. Like against Tigs.
I don't think its an issue every game though. Its just one of those glaringly obvious failings when it does occur (like the flyhalf missing pens
I believe it has been a consistently pretty average area or our game over the past 2 or 3 seasons.
I can't imagine it is that difficult a drill to change & practice, at least I can't recall it being that difficult when I played. Though perhaps it actually is rockets science these days.
You can't always get what you want, But if you try sometimes well you might find, You get what you need.
Richards/Jagger
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