Leinster and scrumhalf development

[riocard911]

Its a bloody tough position to make the breakthrough in, probably the toughest in Irish rugby. Producing top class scrum halves is something we've always found very difficult. Since the game went professional 25 years ago, we've produced precisely one (Murray). The one previous to that was in the late 70s (Patterson). We had a few other good ones (Stringer, Reddan, Boss, O'Leary). We've lost a couple to injury (Scally), but for some reason, one every every 20-30 years is about the ratio.

Because the position is so specialised its very rare to find one that can play another position to a professional level. So theres only room for one on the pitch, one on the bench and you can't pick them in another position like is often done with out halves where you'll often find them picked at 12 or 15, so you are already on the hind foot as regards any kind of gametime.

This, combined with the Irish system, actually mitigates against the development of young scrum halves. International players play the big games. Thats okay for a Jordan Larmour or a Dan Leavy - if there's an incumbent blocking his preferred position, well there's always the wing or the blindside. Scrum halves don't have that option. Come European match weekend, there are four starting slots and four bench slots up for grabs. But there aren't really, because the international players play the big games. So, if the International coach has a preferred duo or trio of scrum halves, then those slots can start to narrow down. Even worse, if a province has two of the international scrum halves (as Munster did around 2009 and Leinster did around 2015) then you don't even really have a shot at the bench. So, in reality, unless you're an absolute prodigy at 21 or 22 and you're part of that privileged national squad cadre, you're better off getting the boat/hitting the motorway for a couple of years like Reddan or Cooney. Now, in my time watching rugby, I can only remember two scrum halves who fit that wunderkind bill - Scally and Murray.

No mention of John Robbie? Bit unfair, IMO. I remember seeing him lead High School to win their one and only SC in '73, thereby denying Ollie Campbell's Belvo the three-in-row (ochón!). I always thought he was the real deal. He even toured SA in '80 with the BIL. I know he later moved there, but to this day I still don't quite understand how he only won 9 Ireland caps. Injury?

[Dave Cahill]

Nine caps over 4 years in those days wasn't a bad haul - especially if you had a rival for the position. Paul Dean played for the best part of a decade and has 32 caps - James Ryan already has 37. No World Cups, fewer internationals and of those fewer internationals, fewer still were test matches.

I was two in in 1973, so i may have missed that match!

[ronk]

If a system is functioning this badly we should either fix it or give up trying to develop professional scrumhalves.

[mildlyinterested]

If a system is functioning this badly we should either fix it or give up trying to develop professional scrumhalves.

[Dave Cahill]

If a system is functioning this badly we should either fix it or give up trying to develop professional scrumhalves.

We don't want to fix it, or rather, we're not prepared to accept the pain that would accompany what would need to be done to fix it.

[Morf]

Out source to China?

[ronk]

If a system is functioning this badly we should either fix it or give up trying to develop professional scrumhalves.

We don't want to fix it, or rather, we're not prepared to accept the pain that would accompany what would need to be done to fix it.

The part that should be hard is easy and vice versa.

We could hire a former elite scrum half to coach and develop the skills and playing style and that would work well enough and be affordable enough.

Getting coaches and fans to accept those players and buy into the compromises would be the hard part. We want ultra reliable scrumhalves, not exciting risk-taking playmakers.

[Twist]

(imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

If your Dublin based company was set up in the first place to employ Dublin people and traded heavily on the basis that it was a Dublin based company that employed Dublin people by the grace of god, then I wouldn't find people giving them sh!t for not hiring people from Dublin all that hard to imagine.

I've come to this late .......who is this company and how can I give them my money?

I think its the GAA


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LeinsterLeader]

If your Dublin based company was set up in the first place to employ Dublin people and traded heavily on the basis that it was a Dublin based company that employed Dublin people by the grace of god, then I wouldn't find people giving them sh!t for not hiring people from Dublin all that hard to imagine.

I've come to this late .......who is this company and how can I give them my money?

I think its the GAA


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow..... you're dangerously close to a Ewan McKenna line of thinking there

[hugonaut]

Its a bloody tough position to make the breakthrough in, probably the toughest in Irish rugby. Producing top class scrum halves is something we've always found very difficult. Since the game went professional 25 years ago, we've produced precisely one (Murray). The one previous to that was in the late 70s (Patterson). We had a few other good ones (Stringer, Reddan, Boss, O'Leary). We've lost a couple to injury (Scally), but for some reason, one every every 20-30 years is about the ratio.

Because the position is so specialised its very rare to find one that can play another position to a professional level. So theres only room for one on the pitch, one on the bench and you can't pick them in another position like is often done with out halves where you'll often find them picked at 12 or 15, so you are already on the hind foot as regards any kind of gametime.

This, combined with the Irish system, actually mitigates against the development of young scrum halves.

Very perceptive DC. A lot of very good points.

It's an interesting topic to me, as I don't feel the position is well understood or appreciated in Irish rugby. From my perspective, the key aspect is that the scrum-half is always going to have way, way more touches than anybody else on his team. It's not unusual for him to have 100 touches in a game, and for the next highest possession player to have 30. Every possession is a decision – on the most basic level, kick/pass/run, open/blind – but the scrum-half is not particularly well-placed to make decisions. Typically he has a poor physical vantage-point. He's very often hunched over at the base of a ruck, with much bigger men directly in front of him.

The practical reality [at least from my perspective], is that the scrum-half is well-placed to dictate the pace at which the game is played [when in possession], and the outhalf is well-placed to dictate how the game is played. So the scrum-half is nominally responsible for tempo, and the outhalf is nominally responsible for tactics. But the scrum-half still has to make loads of decisions, because he gets so many possessions. And he often can't make decisions based on the logic of "playing what's in front of him", because all he can see is a load of bodies. So he has to rely on both intuition and [especially] experience of similar situations.

Like that Irish WHO medic said, 'speed trumps perfection'. When it comes to decision-making for a scrum-half, you have to make quick decisions. As a scrum half, a quick decision gives your teammates time. A slow decision takes time away from them. If you're going to make quick decisions, some of them aren't going to be optimal. And if you have three, or five, or seven times as many possessions as the other players on your team, you're naturally going to make more mistakes than they are.

You've got to allow for scrum-halves to make mistakes. That doesn't mean that you don't criticise bad mistakes, but you accept some mistakes as the cost of doing business. You price-in the risk. They'll have more possessions than anybody else, so on average they'll make more mistakes than anybody else. When I say mistakes, I'm not just talking about handling errors or bad kicks, I'm also talking about the opportunity cost of passing open when there was a chance to break blind, or [conversely] breaking blind when that avenue is well defended. But they have to rely on their experience for quick decisions in compromised positions, and one of the quickest ways to gain experience is learning from your own mistakes. But against that, you play games to win them, not just to build experience.

And while rugby is a strategic game, it's also a collision sport. You have to be a good rugby player as well as a good decision-maker. You're looking for players in any position and in any circumstances who are brave, competitive, tough, confident, calm, intelligent, coachable and good communicators. Physically, for a scrumhalf you need quickness, hand-eye co-ordination, strength, durability and outstanding fitness. And on top of that you're looking for the guy to be one of the two best passers in the team, one of the three best kickers in the team, in the top five in terms of speed over 5-10m, and a technically excellent tackler. It's a really long list of requirements.

[Serb]

We could hire a former elite scrum half to coach and develop the skills and playing style and that would work well enough and be affordable enough.

It’s an interesting idea, but beyond kicking coaches, is there any precedence for such a granular level of coaching hire?

You’d probably have to pay an elite level coach a fair wedge but I guess if they were to work with all 9s in the system and help identify high potential 9s earlier in the process, it could be worth it.

[ronk]

He wouldn’t have to be exclusively a scrum half coach. He’d be well placed as a skills coach with special attention on 9s.

In this case outside the system is probably the way because you want to change.

[leinsterforever]

One possibility would be that the IRFU dictate that the provinces should always give the bench sh at least 20 minutes of gametime. It wouldn't always be possible, obviously, but there could be markers that they would have to hit in terms of % of games it happened in over a season. The bench 9 could get into a habit of analysing the way the game was going from his vantage point on the sidelines so they had an idea what direction they should go when they're introduced. Just an idea.

[hugonaut]

We could hire a former elite scrum half to coach and develop the skills and playing style and that would work well enough and be affordable enough.

It’s an interesting idea, but beyond kicking coaches, is there any precedence for such a granular level of coaching hire?

You’d probably have to pay an elite level coach a fair wedge but I guess if they were to work with all 9s in the system and help identify high potential 9s earlier in the process, it could be worth it.

I don't think you need to be a former elite player. I think you need to have been a career scrum-half as a player and an interested, open-minded and reasonably experienced coach as a coach.

If you have that person as a skills coach/scrum-half coach at academy level and 'A' level you can work at that key level for the majority of the time, and then potentially work as a specialist with scrum-halves up one level [senior] and down one level [sub-academy] as well.

Adam Griggs [current women's national team coach] would be an example of the sort of candidate you might realistically look at. A career scrum and former Canterbury academy player. Former skills coach to Irish Sevens and assistant coach with Leinster U19s, former Leinster Women's coach, worked under a quality coach at Lansdowne with Mike Ruddock.

[mildlyinterested]

Griggs was certainly heavily involved with scrumhalf specialist sessions, both coach development and player development before he became irish coach. Not sure if he continued doing that.

[neiliog93]

Its a bloody tough position to make the breakthrough in, probably the toughest in Irish rugby. Producing top class scrum halves is something we've always found very difficult. Since the game went professional 25 years ago, we've produced precisely one (Murray). The one previous to that was in the late 70s (Patterson). We had a few other good ones (Stringer, Reddan, Boss, O'Leary). We've lost a couple to injury (Scally), but for some reason, one every every 20-30 years is about the ratio.

Because the position is so specialised its very rare to find one that can play another position to a professional level. So theres only room for one on the pitch, one on the bench and you can't pick them in another position like is often done with out halves where you'll often find them picked at 12 or 15, so you are already on the hind foot as regards any kind of gametime.

This, combined with the Irish system, actually mitigates against the development of young scrum halves.

Very perceptive DC. A lot of very good points.

It's an interesting topic to me, as I don't feel the position is well understood or appreciated in Irish rugby. From my perspective, the key aspect is that the scrum-half is always going to have way, way more touches than anybody else on his team. It's not unusual for him to have 100 touches in a game, and for the next highest possession player to have 30. Every possession is a decision – on the most basic level, kick/pass/run, open/blind – but the scrum-half is not particularly well-placed to make decisions. Typically he has a poor physical vantage-point. He's very often hunched over at the base of a ruck, with much bigger men directly in front of him.

The practical reality [at least from my perspective], is that the scrum-half is well-placed to dictate the pace at which the game is played [when in possession], and the outhalf is well-placed to dictate how the game is played. So the scrum-half is nominally responsible for tempo, and the outhalf is nominally responsible for tactics. But the scrum-half still has to make loads of decisions, because he gets so many possessions. And he often can't make decisions based on the logic of "playing what's in front of him", because all he can see is a load of bodies. So he has to rely on both intuition and [especially] experience of similar situations.

Like that Irish WHO medic said, 'speed trumps perfection'. When it comes to decision-making for a scrum-half, you have to make quick decisions. As a scrum half, a quick decision gives your teammates time. A slow decision takes time away from them. If you're going to make quick decisions, some of them aren't going to be optimal. And if you have three, or five, or seven times as many possessions as the other players on your team, you're naturally going to make more mistakes than they are.

You've got to allow for scrum-halves to make mistakes. That doesn't mean that you don't criticise bad mistakes, but you accept some mistakes as the cost of doing business. You price-in the risk. They'll have more possessions than anybody else, so on average they'll make more mistakes than anybody else. When I say mistakes, I'm not just talking about handling errors or bad kicks, I'm also talking about the opportunity cost of passing open when there was a chance to break blind, or [conversely] breaking blind when that avenue is well defended. But they have to rely on their experience for quick decisions in compromised positions, and one of the quickest ways to gain experience is learning from your own mistakes. But against that, you play games to win them, not just to build experience.

And while rugby is a strategic game, it's also a collision sport. You have to be a good rugby player as well as a good decision-maker. You're looking for players in any position and in any circumstances who are brave, competitive, tough, confident, calm, intelligent, coachable and good communicators. Physically, for a scrumhalf you need quickness, hand-eye co-ordination, strength, durability and outstanding fitness. And on top of that you're looking for the guy to be one of the two best passers in the team, one of the three best kickers in the team, in the top five in terms of speed over 5-10m, and a technically excellent tackler. It's a really long list of requirements.

The most important part of what you've said there is the concept of allowing scrum-halfs to make a few mistakes per game. They have so many touches and have such a crucial decision-making role (with limited visibility) that perhaps it is inevitable that mistakes will be made. The Irish mentality seems to be 'safety first' and denies the 9 any remit to lead or take risks, which in the long-term probably also limits how good they can become. I know the French allow the 9 to dictate to a much larger degree than most other places, but the games of all of the excellent French 9s of the last 15-20 years (Michalak, Ellisalde, Yachvili, Parra, Machenaud, Serin, Dupont etc.) usually contain a couple of clangers, even when they've played very well and won their team the game. I can imagine an up-skilled Caolin Blade/Craig Casey type scrum-half in Ireland trying the same, making one or two errors, and being crucified and warned never to take those risks again..

[hugonaut]

Its a bloody tough position to make the breakthrough in, probably the toughest in Irish rugby. Producing top class scrum halves is something we've always found very difficult. Since the game went professional 25 years ago, we've produced precisely one (Murray). The one previous to that was in the late 70s (Patterson). We had a few other good ones (Stringer, Reddan, Boss, O'Leary). We've lost a couple to injury (Scally), but for some reason, one every every 20-30 years is about the ratio.

Because the position is so specialised its very rare to find one that can play another position to a professional level. So theres only room for one on the pitch, one on the bench and you can't pick them in another position like is often done with out halves where you'll often find them picked at 12 or 15, so you are already on the hind foot as regards any kind of gametime.

This, combined with the Irish system, actually mitigates against the development of young scrum halves.

Scrum Half Essay

The most important part of what you've said there is the concept of allowing scrum-halfs to make a few mistakes per game. They have so many touches and have such a crucial decision-making role (with limited visibility) that perhaps it is inevitable that mistakes will be made. The Irish mentality seems to be 'safety first' and denies the 9 any remit to lead or take risks, which in the long-term probably also limits how good they can become. I know the French allow the 9 to dictate to a much larger degree than most other places, but the games of all of the excellent French 9s of the last 15-20 years (Michalak, Ellisalde, Yachvili, Parra, Machenaud, Serin, Dupont etc.) usually contain a couple of clangers, even when they've played very well and won their team the game. I can imagine an up-skilled Caolin Blade/Craig Casey type scrum-half in Ireland trying the same, making one or two errors, and being crucified and warned never to take those risks again..

It ties in with what Murray Kinsella was writing today about George Ford's opinion's on Ireland's set up [link: https://www.the42.ie/joey-carbery-secon ... 4-May2020/ ]

It also explains [in my mind] how Luke McGrath has gone from playing like a better version of Isaac Boss to a poorer version of Eoin Reddan.

[mildlyinterested]

Care to expand? Struggling to see the tie in.

[hugonaut]

Care to expand? Struggling to see the tie in.

We play with a single dominant play-maker at No10 in Sexton. If you played him with a No9 who makes decisions on a fairly high proportion of prime ball [the way Cooney plays for Ulster, or Dupont plays for France, or Mike Phillips played for Wales] then I think you would have a big personality clash.

I have a huge amount of time for Sexton, but there is no doubt he is extremely demanding, and at times I think he can be overly critical and bad-tempered to the point where there is no positive to it. When things aren't going well, his body language on the pitch is pretty iffy. Because he is such a good player and has been so successful, you take the rough with the smooth. Also, by all accounts that is just the way he is, the way he has been, he's not going to change an awful lot and he's not a bad guy in the round. However, the idea that you have to be super narky to be successful is easily disproved by Dan Carter and Jonny Wilkinson.

In any case, I think Luke McGrath has gone into a shell a little bit over the last couple of years and has become more conservative. I put a portion of that down to him trying to become more of a 'smooth' scrum-half [like Graham Bachop or Aaron Smith] than a 'bustling' scrum-half [like Justin Marshall or TJ Perenara], when he naturally tends towards the latter category.

Reddan was smooth, Boss was bustling. Bossy scored four tries in each of his first four seasons - he was always taking on ball and challenging fringes. Reddan scored none - he was always trying to avoid being tackled or scragged so that his ruck-to-ruck times were as fast as possible and he could pass that time on, largely to his outhalf, to make decisions against a time-stretched defense.

I think Sexton basically wants McGrath to play more like Reddan, who he had and still has a very good relationship with, and with whom he played an incredibly successful stretch with at Leinster. That's not McGrath's optimal style. And because Sexton is such a dominant personality in the group, and because McGrath is eight years younger than him rather than five years older than him, and because Nucifora f*cked us by shipping Carbery out and aborting what was looking like a very effective two-playmaker system, our style has gone back to being really reliant on the No10. We don't have a decision-maker outside Sexton, and a guy who could be a decision-maker inside him is not really encouraged to be.

If you play with a second play-maker in the backline, i.e. Carbery for the second half of the 2016-17 and the 2017-18 season at fullback for Leinster, or Owen Farrell at No12 for the Lions 2017 test series, then you're still operating in a system where Sexton gets the prime ball, but he has a release valve outside him: he can afford to take a risk, get tackled and caught up in a ruck, because [especially with Farrell], he knew there was a quality decision-maker and ball-player to guide the team around if he was on the deck. Sextons's grumpy, but he knows how to play in a team and he wants to win - if that's how the team is set up to play by a coach he respects, that's the way he'll play it.

However, if we tried to put 2019-20 John Cooney into our team at scrum-half now, I'd say himself and Sexton would be eating the heads off each other at training every single afternoon. I'd imagine Sexton would think that Cooney is taking way too much out of good ball way too often. Cooney has been leading Ulster around by the nose for two and a half seasons, and has played the best rugby of his career that way, so why would he want to change?

Now, maybe that's all a load of ol' boll*x, but that's what I think.

[Ruckedtobits]

What a great discussion. Fair play lads, I hope Stuart & Leo get passed a copy of your views and who knows?

I don't say that in jest. It happens.