Defence: It is all about 'attitude'
As banal as it sounds, the stale, moth-eaten apothegm still rings true: ‘Defence wins you championships.’
It is thus not surprising that the teams in the top five positions after five round of Super Rugby action have all achieved distinctions in their defensive exams this season.
In short, they have won more matches because they have conceded fewer tries than their rivals – i.e. they defended better.
The table-topping Stormers, the Bulls (who would be second was it not for the labyrinthian conference system that allows only one team from each country in the top three spots) and the New Zealand conference leaders the Chiefs are the most frugal – having conceded just five tries each.
They are followed by Australian conference leaders, the Brumbies, with seven tries and the Highlanders, eight.
If you analyse it even more – in fact if you look at the top two, Stormers and Bulls, who play each other this weekend – you will see the best defensive units have a tackle-completion rate of over 90 percent.
That means they simply don’t miss too many tackles and thus allow the opposition very few scoring opportunities, often forcing their rivals into mistakes through the pressure applied on defence.
Bulls coach Frans Ludeke makes no secret of the fact that they put a high premium on defence, even though they are the tournament’s leading try scorers.
“We work hard on not conceding turnovers, to ensure the oppositions doesn’t get too many chances from broken play,” Ludeke told this website in an exclusive interview, when asked about the enormous volume of work put in on their defensive structures.
“[Defence guru] John McFarland is good in that aspect … we had a really good off-season and from that came a shift in emphasis.
“You also saw last year, the Stormers were a group who conceded the least tries and they were in the [play-off] mix,” he added.
The statistics from the first five round seem to back up the premise that defence is they key to winning big tournaments.
The Stormers have been consistently above 90 percent in their tackle completion rate – they made 157 tackles and missed just five against the Lions last week (96.9 percent), made 117 and missed just four against the Blues (96.7 percent), made 151 and missed 14 against the Sharks (91.5 percent), made 68 tackles and missed seven against the Hurricanes (the 90.7 percent their ‘worst’ performance of the season).
And the Bulls are not that far behind.
They made 107 and missed 10 tackles against the Reds (91.5 percent), made 74 and missed nine tackles against the Blues (89.2 percent), made 94 and missed nine tackles against the Cheetahs (91.3 percent), made 95 and missed 17 tackles against the Sharks (the 84.8 percent, their worst of the season, coming in the first week of the season).
It is also worth noting that the teams who have let the most tries in this season – the Reds (15 tries conceded), the Western Force (15) and the Blues (14) – often had tackle completion rates well below 85 percent, even as low as 80 percent in some cases.
Ludeke, when asked about his team’s success on defence, said it is all down to “attitude”.
“We realise how important it [defence] is,” the Bulls mentor told this website.
“John McFarland certainly worked hard to get that accountability [among the players],” he said, adding that it was the same as in other aspects – like scrums, in the tackle and contact situation.
“It comes from within,” he said, adding: “What John [McFarland] also does well is putting in many long hours to ensure we get plenty of good information about the opposition … aspects like what makes them good on attack.
“But that is the same as what the Stormers do, so there is no major secrets.
“That is why I say the main factor is the attitude, coming from the heart.
“The players know it is important and we made it a priority – deference has always been a priority to us.”
By Jan de Koning
