2014/15: Style of Play

[rorybestsbigbaldnoggin]

Watching the Super Rugby final here, and the willingness of both teams to run the ball from essentially anywhere is astounding.

In a UTV interview quite recently, Louis Ludik alluded to the "expansive, throw the ball around" style of play that Les Kiss seems to be encouraging in the pre-season. What are opinions on what our 'style' should be/will be?

Personally I'm viewing this season with slightly reduced expectations than pre 13/14. The first thing I want to see is Jackson and Pienaar doing something other than kicking the laces off the ball; they're both excellent playmakers outside their kicking, when given the tactical chance, and I'd hope that a more pro-active possession game would improve our try count, style of play et cetera.

As well as simply looking better - which ultimately counts for nothing - if a passing game amongst our world-class (and last season, tactically under-utilised) back line was to be built off a solid pack platform, it would improve our results.* The missing ingredient last year was our attack and chance conversion: if we can fix that, whilst retaining the outstanding defence Dinger has built, we will pose a challenge, in any location, to any team in Europe.

Thoughts?



*Think of Zebre home and away, or Dragons away last season, to name a few. How we were not racking up 3 tries minimum in those games is astounding.

[Russ]

Play like NSW and I will be happy

Easterby Out

[Russ]

Jesus Christ Joubert ruins games

Easterby Out

[Gael]

I don't think we are that defensively outstanding tbh. A certain amount of criticism must go to our halfbacks also, I mean running the ball is sometimes the right thing to do, but we never seemed to get moving confidently for long periods of time last season.

[rorybestsbigbaldnoggin]

I don't think we are that defensively outstanding tbh. A certain amount of criticism must go to our halfbacks also, I mean running the ball is sometimes the right thing to do, but we never seemed to get moving confidently for long periods of time last season.

I don't agree with your first point Gael, and don't really understand the second.

2nd (to Glasgow) best defence in the Rabo and best group defence in the Heineken last season (in terms of tries conceded). Saracens QF must be treated as an aberration due to the lack of a full-back line of defence.

In your second point - why do Pienaar/Jackson deserve criticism? Because they didn't run the ball at all, didn't run it enough or didn't run it well when they did? My read of last season was the tactical focus during the week was "garryowen, Trimble to chase and then see what happens" - thus when we actually needed to go through the phases in the opposition 22, we hadn't practiced any more than round-the-corner carries which were generally easily defended (even by Zebre!). Thus whilst our possession play was utterly blunt last season, I wouldn't lay it primarily at the feet of the half-backs, but rather at the coaching team who, on the evidence of our attacking play, gave essentially no time to the planning of multi-phase attacking moves or an offloading game.

[rumncoke]

The question is foolish because it is based on several assumptions that the game is only being played by one team. That all games are played in the same weather conditions and every team you play adopts the same form of defence and have exactly the same strengths and weaknesses .

The Peinaar and Jackson resorted to kicking the ball could be the result of two things firstly position on the field == playing a running game in your own half must always be considered a high risk approach to be adopted only when there is little to be gained by kicking the ball ie when playing into a strong wind or when you are losing with about 15 minutes to go and the time remaining in the game no longer allows to play for position but to go for the points.

The second reason they may have kicked so often was because the opposition realised that the strenght in the Ulster back was in the wings Bowe Trimble and Gilroy and therefore were playing a rush defence at the Ulster centres which requires and observent Referee to ensure the opposition stay on side but the fact is that most referees have their backs to the mid field and seldom blow for offside by a rush defence unless a player is tackled on a man and ball pass .

But the offrside rush defence has actually served it's purpose by forcing the kick and denying the pass.

It is also worth stating Peinaar usually only kicks when within 5 metres of the Ulster 22 with the occasional grubber close to the line for the wings to chase.

N.B. kick ping pong is the product of players lacking support or an unorganised defence should they run and get isolated

The easiest way to get players fit is by making them play a wide passing game it also improves handling of the ball and makes training more enjoyable thus what is haqppening on the training pitch is frequently seldom a clue as to the style of play.

My guess would be that Kiss will a coach who will encourage defensive awareness when playing within the ULSTER half and attack when within the opposition half with control of position being the most important facet .

[BaggyTrousers]

Players to a large extent play to the coaches tactics, what they are trained to do during the week. It may not be how certain players want to play the game.

I have more positive feelings for the new season than some. I believe that the dearly departed Dr Humphreys did his best recruitment wise and although there are no enormous names coming in I have high hopes that Herbst & Van der Merve will be very good players and are replacing 2 guys who were undoubtedly big names but whose contributions over the last 12 months were not up there with their best, possibly Afoa's scrummaging apart, when he was available. Franco looks a beast of a man, Weihahn,well time will tell but plaudits from the du Plessis boys are not to be ignored.

As for style, Ulster were poor in the league last season, indeed very disappointingly poor. I'm not bothered by style, I want to see what works, what wins matches. If Les Kiss thinks that we have the ability to play fast and loose, well he knows more than I do, so be it.

I want to see less poor decisions when we are on top, more ability to take our chances as we did in 2013-14 when we scored tries for fun, but ultimately what makes a season is how you play the big ones, the games against teams who are your real competitors for titles. We have not won anything in this recent spell of promise, not because of how we play week in & week out, not because of style but because of how we didn't quite have it between the ears when the vital moments came.

I suspect this was never going to be within Anscombe's abilities to alter, can Les Kiss? Wait & see but I'm hopeful for this season.

[rumncoke]

Ulster's major failing last year was their inability to score when within 10 metres of the line . Ulster missed BFN for a number of games and the forwards failed when taking the ball to get over the gain line and to absorb the opposition to create space for the backs if the ball was released to the backs.

That inability meant many games were being played on narrow points differences during the game and reduced the opportunity to play high risk rugby .

The only game were Ulster opened up and showed exactly what they could do was Connaught, when Ulster had a 2 try lead early in the game.

[Gael]

I don't think we are that defensively outstanding tbh. A certain amount of criticism must go to our halfbacks also, I mean running the ball is sometimes the right thing to do, but we never seemed to get moving confidently for long periods of time last season.

I don't agree with your first point Gael, and don't really understand the second.

2nd (to Glasgow) best defence in the Rabo and best group defence in the Heineken last season (in terms of tries conceded). Saracens QF must be treated as an aberration due to the lack of a full-back line of defence.

In your second point - why do Pienaar/Jackson deserve criticism? Because they didn't run the ball at all, didn't run it enough or didn't run it well when they did? My read of last season was the tactical focus during the week was "garryowen, Trimble to chase and then see what happens" - thus when we actually needed to go through the phases in the opposition 22, we hadn't practiced any more than round-the-corner carries which were generally easily defended (even by Zebre!). Thus whilst our possession play was utterly blunt last season, I wouldn't lay it primarily at the feet of the half-backs, but rather at the coaching team who, on the evidence of our attacking play, gave essentially no time to the planning of multi-phase attacking moves or an offloading game.

Well our D conceded a lot of line breaks and thereafter penaltys. Was infuriating at times.
Jackson and Pienaar deserve criticism because its up to them to run the game and at times in the league we were fairly disasterous in that respect. They are two of my favourite players but thats what I took from last season.

[Spiffsson]

Chucking the ball about from all positions on the pitch can be dangerous and often just downright daft. Still, I wanted to see more running rugby from Ulster last season and less of the kick and chase game. Ulster do have the backline talent to score tries by moving the ball. I think Paddy Jackson matured pretty well last year and gained a lot of self confidence, and hope to see him direct more of a passing game this season and have a bit of a go himself in going more often for the possible break. He's well capable of it.

[Snipe Watson]

We were predictable last season and lacked big ball carriers. No Ferris and an under performing Nick Williams were no small part in that, but we seemed to lack subtlety in attack. I think we will see a better game plan this season.

[scrum5]

I complained most of last season about our style of play, we kicked the ball high and chased, it was horrible to watch and more than often we just handed possession back to the opposition, we had a backline last season the envy of Europe and with the addition of Ludik, a fit again Olding and hopefully Gilroy and Tommy over their injuries, it's even better this season, keep ball in hand and if we kick, kick for territory and not just lump it up..... that would do me.

[Russ]

I complained most of last season about our style of play, we kicked the ball high and chased, it was horrible to watch and more than often we just handed possession back to the opposition, we had a backline last season the envy of Europe and with the addition of Ludik, a fit again Olding and hopefully Gilroy and Tommy over their injuries, it's even better this season, keep ball in hand and if we kick, kick for territory and not just lump it up..... that would do me.

We have a backline to rival the Waratahs. They need to watch their s15 games

Easterby Out

[scrum5]

No, the coaches need to watch

[Russ]

No, the coaches need to watch

Everybody needs to watch

Easterby Out