Leinster and Ulster served up a tight interprovincial derby, but it was far from the contest that was expected given the weather conditions in the Kingspan stadium in Belfast.
Garry Ringrose referenced the Ulster entries and access into the Leinster half which saw them make a second half surge and if it weren't for a slightly fortunate, yet attitudinally exceptional intervention from Charlie Ngatai, the Ulster momentum may well have led to a third victory in the last three outings between the sides.
However, Leinster stood firm and managed the conditions just enough to win an all-important interprovincial derby that has put them back in the ascendency in the Irish rugby rankings.
Usually, it is the coach and not the captain that speaks of entries and access. Players are very much focused on the moment in front of their face and rarely think about a sequence of plays that result in scores. They might think about how they could have defended a setpiece differently, whereas the coach will potentially look at how the set piece came to light and how their team ended up in their half in the first place.
This is the role of the coach versus the player. Some tactically astute players can develop their thinking towards the helicopter view that a coach has, but that can be the great difference between a coach's thoughts and the thoughts of the player.
When transitioning from player to coach, this is certainly something I had to become more aware of, the sequence of events leading to an opportunity in attack or defence. Despite playing as an out-half and learning more about game management, it was coaching that really developed this part of my thought process, as I’m sure it does for many other players transitioning to coaching.
But what does it mean to be aware of access and entry points? The most obvious one is errors in attack or defence. A simple missed tackle far out the pitch can result in a line break and entry from one half to the other. That can be more simply fixed through the defensive system or the one on one tackle.
In attack, something like a loose offload when there’s an opportunity to clean a breakdown and score on the next phase with fast ball can change to a scramble defence situation because the loose offload turned into a counter-attacking threat. These are easier entry points to identify as they are mistake led and most people will be aware of how a turnover or transition occurred.
Inconsistent exits from your own half can give easy access points to the opposition as well. There was a moment when Jacob Stockdale kicked long to exit but he never found the safety of touch. I don’t know if that was his aim or not.
Sometimes, if the kick is long enough and the kick chase is aggressive and organised enough then you will end up with a set defensive line closer to the halfway line which would be deemed successful. However, in this instance and despite a decent enough Stockdale left-footed connection, Jimmy O’Brien was able to eat up the ground on the counterattack and had to do little other than use his pace to cross the Ulster ten-metre line.
That is a very easy access on counterattack for Leinster and it put Ulster under pressure once again in the first half of the game where most of the damage was done.
John Andrew disrupted two of Leinster’s kick exits in the first half and gave Ulster opportunities to strike but with the weather and their own errors, they just couldn’t capitalise on their first half entry points.
On the point of kicking, Leinster sustained a foothold in the game when the weather was at its worst by kicking box kicks from Luke McGrath, which Ulster failed to deal with. Lowry and Sexton failed to catch the high kicks on numerous occasions, which allowed Leinster to play in the Ulster half.
One of the most straightforward entry points into a game is through the referee's whistle. In fact, it was through a scrum penalty against the head that Leinster got their foothold in the game. Ulster had dominated the opening possession, but Leinster kicked their penalty deep into the Ulster half and played right and then left before some sublime Ringrose handling under pressure set Ryan Baird down the left wing for the opening score of the match.
Penalty concessions from Leinster’s perspective also gave Ulster a comeback into the game in the second half. With some maul dominance and repeated infringements from Leinster, Ulster pressured them into making mistakes and it was nearly enough for Ulster to pinch the game.
How often do you see a team going from defensive pressure deep in the opposition half to defending their own 22-metre area? Compounding errors or compounding silly penalties can often be the root cause.
Eagerness in a defensive scrum or a defensive line can often lead to a cheap penalty when the opposition team are playing out from their own half. The penalty gets awarded, a kick to touch followed by playing the lineout jumpers arm in the air and all of a sudden, the team under pressure are sixty metres from their own line and have turned defence into attack.
Game management usually gets passed from the coaches to the decision-makers like half backs and team leaders but mainly falls on the shoulders of the out-half. When teams decide to run/kick out of their own 22, the out-half trusts the next man out to make a good decision on kicking the ball long if the defence rushes up. Sometimes that decision making can be poor, and the onus will still fall back on the out-half for not managing correctly.
Similarly, with game management, Aaron Sexton tried to catch Leinster napping with a quick lineout into Jacob Stockdale. Leinster were quick to react, won a penalty which resulted in the Dan Sheehan maul try.
Had Ulster settled things down and exited with more structure and game management, Leinster might never have the opportunity to launch their maul, and Sheehan may not have scored his 21st try in 31 games, a ridiculous return for the athletic hooker.
When you are watching a rugby match, tracking entries and access points into each teams half can give a greater understanding on game management and can change the way you look at the outcome of a game.
Ringrose and company will be aware that they lost control of the second half of their derby with Ulster and will be looking to put a more rounded performance together as they welcome back even more internationals in the coming weeks.
