Fascinating breakdown! I'd be curious whether you think that improvement is coming more from pre-loaded set-piece plays (rehearsed strike moves off lineout, phase shapes teams drill repeatedly) or from players becoming better at reading and exploiting defensive structure in real time. The increase in unstructured try conversion would suggest the latter, but I wonder if even "broken field" situations are now being coached more systematically so teams recognise patterns and are prepped with answers rather than purely ad-libbing.
Thanks Will! I think it's a bit of both. Interestingly, more tries come from restarts than we saw just a few years ago. These were things that teams wouldn't have really bothered working on strike moves for and now they are. While, at the same time, we are seeing coaches looking to create broken field with contestable kicks. So I do think they're both combining to create this.
Fascinating breakdown! I'd be curious whether you think that improvement is coming more from pre-loaded set-piece plays (rehearsed strike moves off lineout, phase shapes teams drill repeatedly) or from players becoming better at reading and exploiting defensive structure in real time. The increase in unstructured try conversion would suggest the latter, but I wonder if even "broken field" situations are now being coached more systematically so teams recognise patterns and are prepped with answers rather than purely ad-libbing.
Thanks Will! I think it's a bit of both. Interestingly, more tries come from restarts than we saw just a few years ago. These were things that teams wouldn't have really bothered working on strike moves for and now they are. While, at the same time, we are seeing coaches looking to create broken field with contestable kicks. So I do think they're both combining to create this.