Code Cousins: How Rugby League taught Union some valuable lessons
Billy Slater runs in a try for the Australian international rugby league team.
Credit: Jon Super/AP Images
The two codes of the oval game could be described as brains against brawn, coal miners against public schoolboys or the warring sibling children of the North/South divide.
Whichever of those descriptions most tickles your fancy, the single truth that remains intact is that the chasm between rugby union and rugby league is no less gaping than it has at any point been.
The crash-bang-wallop spectacle of league has found its feet most safely in the Pacific, with Australia leading the way.
The National Rugby League has developed into one of the premier sporting competitions south of the Equator and the input from nations like Papua New Guinea, as well as a flood of Fijian, Samoan and Tongan players lighting up the competition weekly, has established league as the powerhouse brother Down Under.
Unless, of course, you happen to hail from New Zealand. The inconsistent performance of the NZ Warriors in the NRL aside, The All Blacks stand as a symbol for the general global dominance of rugby union.
You travel from the United States of America all the way across the world to Japan and bring up the topic of rugby, there's only one code on their minds.
The influx of international stardom and high-quality coaching into the English Premiership, French Top 14 and Guinness Pro14 competitions in Europe have only exacerbated the superiority of what its fans would call the 'thinking man's game' in mockery of their league counterparts in these parts of the world.
However, having experienced both sides of the rugby coin over the last couple of years in depth and in spite of my lifelong commitment to rugby union, there are certain things that I have realised about rugby league that put union slightly to shame.
There are certain simple elements of play that now form the basis of the way rugby league is approached that union sides are still only starting to come to terms with.
What I want to do here is not only to address those elements that have served rugby league so well but also to argue that the most successful teams going in union are those that have been quickest off the mark in terms of adapting and integrating these factors into their own game.
There may be substantial differences between the rugby codes but there's a reason, after all, that they share the same name.
Defensive line speed
The notion of pace off the mark has been a feature of attacking rugby for as many years as the game has existed in both codes. However, on the other side of the ball, this speed has been until recently neglected in union for one very simple reason.
In league, the necessity of the defensive line to retreat 10m from the ruck site before the ball is played has meant that they have 10m greater to shut down once the ball is active.
If the defensive line does not come up quickly and press the attacking side, they are giving the opposition not only metres for free before the next tackle is made but the opportunity for the attacking runner to build up extra speed, leading to greater likelihood they will get more post-contact metres to boot.
In union, the defensive line is allowed up to the back foot of the ruck itself, again a necessity given the need for players on both sides to actively engage in the ruck.
However, this has arguably led to a situation wherein defensive players in rugby union were happy to allow the opposition to come onto them and simply spread out, shifting along with the ball in order to shut down attacks.
Since the attacking players have less ground to cover to meet the defensive line, there is naturally less opportunity for momentum to be gained and for potential line-breaking plays to be enacted. Much less urgency, therefore, is placed on the speed of the defensive line's press on the opposition.
However, even in union, a strong defensive press can be a vital weapon to any side. Saracens and Exeter Chiefs, the two best current sides in English rugby union (financial skulduggery aside), are the sides that have best recognised and enacted the lessons from rugby league and that begins here.
Saracens famous 'Wolfpack' defence has been built upon a good and consistent line speed which does not give their opposition the kind of room to work in they may be accustomed to.
What it does is either force the attack to rely on one or two pass plays that are not threatening to the defence and easy to combat.
It can even make the attacking line stand deeper to give themselves more time, making it more likely they will be trapped behind the gain line and the defence has more time to read their play and adjust accordingly.
Quick ball out of the ruck
This is a factor in both sports that has come into sharp focus in rugby union over the last two years or so. However, in rugby league, it is one of the crucial determinants of success in the game.
Some statistics for you. In the NRL regular season in 2018, seven of the eight teams that had the quickest average play-the-ball speed (that is, the quickest cycle from the tackle being made to the ball being moved out of the ruck) made the top 8 in the league, which is the teams that qualify for the finals. It is no coincidence.
The interesting thing about these play-the-ball statistics is the differences are so minute but they have deceptively large influences.
The team with the quickest play-the-ball average, the Penrith Panthers, averaged a cycle of 3.47 seconds over the year. The slowest average went to the Parramatta Eels, who clocked in at 3.65 seconds. The Eels finished bottom of the NRL ladder that year.
The difference between the quickest and slowest ruck cycle in the NRL was a measly 0.18 seconds. That and the relative positioning of the teams compared to their play-the-ball speeds should tell you that any advantage, however slight, in terms of ball speed gives teams a significant boost.
It enables teams not only to give themselves a slight head-start on the defensive line in front of them but also increases the ground they are likely to gain off a play following a quick play-the-ball, which in turn is likely to lead to more quick ball.
What is more, if a team can use quick ball to break the line, it can result in either a try or a position in which defenders are forced to illegally slow the ball down, which results in penalties and sometimes sin-binnings.
Again, it is Saracens and Exeter Chiefs that are the teams that came to terms with this in rugby union, with Chiefs in particular being masters of the art.
They have become so adept at swiftly getting support players into the ruck to allow a fast pass from the base that it sometimes feels as quick as like lightning flashing.
South Africa showed similar skills when they beat England in the Test Series in the summer of 2018. Faf de Klerk was so influential to the result of that series because he was able to get quick ball out of rucks and either move it to his backline or exploit any defensive disorganisation himself, which is what he shows now for Sale.
Faf de Klerk is one of union’s best examples of the importance of quick ball from the ruck.
Credit: Getty Images
This, to me, was most familiar of the way Damien Cook, the South Sydney Rabbitohs hooker (who fills the role of the scrum-half to all intents and purposes in league) has in the last couple of seasons capitalised on quick ball to take advantage of offside defenders and gaps in defensive lines around the ruck area.
His best came in a try against the Melbourne Storm and demonstrates the point perfectly. Seriously, take a moment and watch it here - it's a belter.
However, there is one additional string to this bow that have particularly made Exeter Chiefs in union so effective. To generate quick ball, you need to commit men to the ruck to counteract the opposition and you need to have someone immediately ready to receive the ball.
Traditionally, the forwards would fill both of these roles - forwards would enter the ruck to win the ball and a forward runner would often take the next carry. What Chiefs have brilliantly done is to blur the gap between forwards and backs in pursuit of ruck speed.
Their backs are all willing to get involved in rucking and are good at it - this is not uncommon in modern rugby union all round - but also their backline can often be seen taking first-receiver carries into contact exactly as forwards are expected to do.
This leads to a situation wherein any player on the pitch is able and willing to carry out any action, regardless of position, meaning that they are capable of generating quick ball in any area of the pitch - a nightmare for any defence to contend with.
Offloads and support play
There was one anomaly with the play-the-ball statistics shown above and it is this - the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, who finished fourth on the ladder, ranked close to the bottom in terms of ruck speed.
However, there is a very good reason why the Sharks were unhampered by that fact in 2018 and it was this - they were the best offloading team in the competition.
When carried out well, offloads are a defending team's worst nightmare. An offload can allow a player running a good support line the opportunity to attack a weakened defence.
There could still be players involved in the attempted tackle or a runner can be put straight through a gap an engaged defender has vacated.
The Sharks racked up the most collective offloads of any side in the competition in 2018 and they also had the top offloader in terms of players - prop Andrew Fifita recorded 82 successful offloads, 11 more than the next best player.
Fifita was given the Prop of the Year Award at the NRL's top awards, the Dally Ms, in 2018 and his offloading ability is in no small part responsible for that honour.
To complement a good offload, however, you need a good support line. In a game where defensive intensity is so high, rugby league players are constantly running support lines into space, even if they know they have no hope of the ball getting to them.
Running a good support line at a gap in the defensive line either gives the support player a genuine line-break chance if the ball reaches them or draws defenders in to open up space elsewhere.
The best exponent of this art has long been Billy Slater. The legendary fullback has built a career worth 190 NRL tries on running constant support lines for his teammates. Take a look at the tribute video below - in almost every attacking clip contained in it, you will see examples of textbook support line running from either Slater or someone else.
Some of them are quick but they demonstrate the usefulness of support play perfectly. (My favourite comes at 4min55 - even before Cooper Cronk, no. 7, has shaped to kick, Slater is running his support line down the middle of the pitch to give options.)
Support running is a concept that has certainly not gone unnoticed by rugby union sides, though. It doesn't take too many brain cells to work out that if a team-mate breaks the line out wide, having a man inside to pass to will be the best way of beating the fullback.
This is drilled into rugby league players as soon as they start playing the game and a skill that union players, while perhaps not as natural an instinct for them, are catching up to.
However, the lesson league teaches is the brutal combination of offloads and support lines. We could sit here and talk about the impact it can have on a game but instead, I will just show you this.
It is the All Blacks (the go-to source for union's best) and the offload comes from Aaron Cruden as he is taking the tackle to the support player.
It is a rugby league play in union clothing. Offloading out of the tackle itself is a rare enough practice in union these days but this clip shows how beautiful it can be and how effective when it is coupled with players willing to gamble on a support line even if it doesn't initially seem like the play is on.
The most important part of that clip, although hard to hear, is in the commentary. The commentator says that there was no-one in the ground who could have predicted that offload, yet the support runner either did predict it or was willing to run that line on the merest hint of a chance.
It ends up splitting the defence open and scoring. Very few union defences - actually, very few rugby defences full stop - can cope with these kinds of plays when they're executed at their best and the All Blacks demonstrate perfectly in that clip why union once again must learn a lesson from rugby league.
The three crucial facets of rugby I have spoken about here are skills and instincts that come as second nature to the best league players and they are things, I believe, that set the very best union teams apart.
Not all union teams have caught on so well to these concepts but the proof can be seen in the teams that have adapted on what a huge impact they bring.
You want to know the clincher? The All Blacks offload clip - notice who was running that brilliant support line and making a game-breaking play in a game of rugby union?
Sonny Bill Williams. A man who made his name playing rugby league and taking them with him as he swapped codes.
That should tell you all you need to know.
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