Following a vastly improved effort from Wales in their Six Nations defeat to Ireland, Sam Larner dives into the adjustments that were made in attack.

In the run-up to Matt Sherratt’s first match in charge of Wales, there was a lot of discussion about how quickly he could bring his attacking plans to Wales.

He had less than two weeks before showcasing his new approach against Ireland. And, well Wales played totally differently.

Different approaches on attack

It was clear that Sherratt had brought his attacking plans to Wales. At the heart of this discussion is the phrase ‘attacking shape’. But what is it and how can you spot it during matches?

Let’s start by explaining what it isn’t. Guiding your entire approach is your attacking philosophy. These are the big aims you have from your attacking set-up, things like how much risk you are willing to take on or how you want to break down an opponent.

A team like Bristol Bears have a vastly different approach to risk than a team like Leicester Tigers or England.

Someone like Toulouse would want to have forwards with better handling to get the ball wide whereas the Springboks want to punch holes with their forwards and generally leave the fancier handling to their backs. That will then guide things like recruitment and training sessions.

Toulouse would spend time working on that handling at the expense of other skills they deem less important. None of those approaches are ‘correct’, teams should pick the approach that suits them best and which they believe in.

Options

Attacking shape is the next level of detail. The shape is a description of where you want your attackers to be when you have the ball. The key to good attacking shape is creating options. Let’s look at an example:

Here we’re looking at Harlequins and this comes immediately after a goal line drop out. They have a ruck in the midfield which creates two sides of attack and on either side they have a clear attacking plan.

On the blindside, red, they have three attackers stood in a pod – this is a group of attackers generally shaped like an arrow with the carrier at the front and two supporting players on either side of him.

They also then have a back stood in behind them who can join the pod if he spots a potential area of weakness or support a line break. On the openside, blue, they have more room to work with and more attacking options. They have a wider pod which is more spread out with backs in behind should they want to move the ball wide. But, whichever direction they play they have options once the pass is caught.

They end up going to the blindside and carrying with the central player. But they could interplay between the forwards or use the back behind. This is very challenging for a defender because you never know who you will tackle until the last minute and that makes it difficult to force a dominant hit.

You want your shape to be coherent as well. It shouldn’t be so complicated that it crumbles under pressure but nor should it be so simple that your opponents always know what you’re doing.

This phase is just a few after the previous example. Notice here how Jarrod Evans is telling those outside of him what he wants.

Just a few seconds later the Quins attack looks like this:

Look how the Quins are in a pod again but this time off the fly-half and still with options out the back of that pod. This is different to what the defence have seen before but not so different that it takes more than a couple of seconds and a couple of words to arrange.

We spoke earlier about the benefit of creating options to to trick defences, but it’s also helpful for generating quick ball. If those close passing options aren’t used, they can jump into the ruck and secure quick ball.

Playing what’s in front of you

There will be some of you at this point exhaling and saying that this is everything that’s wrong with modern rugby. You might shout that this shows that teams are over-coached and should instead just play what’s in front of them. Attacking shape isn’t trying to remove that from players.

They will always play what’s in front of them and the shape is designed to allow those multiple options to get the ball where the space is. The shape is a structure which aims to get the most out of players and stress defenders as much as possible. The alternative is that all fifteen attackers truly just play exactly what they see. Which would be wonderful for defenders.

At present, defending is difficult because the attack knows what they are trying to do but you don’t. You’re always one step behind. Remove the attacking shape and now neither side knows what they are doing and defending just became much easier.

You can see this with the evolution in the Welsh attack. Sherratt didn’t come with a groundbreaking attacking shape that no defence has seen before. He simply came with a shape that meant the players knew what they were doing, which was an improvement from what they were doing before. And that is why attacking shape matters.

READ MORE: To blitz or not to blitz? How the best teams in the world defend in the golden age of rugby

Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/six-nations-how-matt-sherratt-turned-wales-shockingly-bad-attack-into-something-totally-different