This Searle is on Fire

In a tougher league at a new club, Searle is flying for the Tigers, how?

Billy Searle played 22 matches for Agen last season and scored three tries. Already this year he’s bagged four in 16 and looks to have made the fly-half position his own at Tigers. But why is he so good with ball in hand?

As a fly-half your linebreaks will generally come in the middle of the pitch where you have attackers on both the inside and outside. Therefore being able to animate the ball is a critical skill. Notice how Searle holds the ball in two hands and pushes it forward to really sell the pass. Also notice how he comes around the corner, fixes the wide defender then straightens to beat the inside defender.

Here Nick Tompkins has to scamper across to support his outside defender.

But then Searle straightens up, keeps the ball in two hands, has a runner on his shoulder, and all those things conspire to open up the hole on the inside shoulder of Tompkins.

Notice how this is almost exactly the same play. We are going to see this a lot in the next few years. The hard line with the fly-half running out the back and the blindside winger sweeping with him. We see the same approach from Searle. He bends his run to straighten up the attack and gets the ball in two hands. This time though the Stormers push up on him which is his cue to give the pass - winger or centre it doesn’t really matter the hole has been created by his running prowess.

Here we can see all of the elements we have already talked about tied together. Searle takes the ball and immediately runs that line where he aims for the far sideline. That does two things; it fixes Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (14) who ends up being glued to the spot, secondly it pulls Henry Slade away from his support.

Look at Searle’s body position as he makes the linebreak pass. After making that angled run, he straightens up so his body is facing up the field. It’s very easy for players to not fully straighten up after an angled run like this. If Searle kept drifting here he would simply slingshot Slade into the path of his support runner. Straighten up, animate the ball, and you’ll fix the defender in front of you.

Note how Searle carries the ball in two hands away from his body. That gives him the flexibility to get the pass away to one of the three supporting players or pull it back into his body if the carry is the best option. Of course, this helps if you are going to pass the ball but it also helps if you’re going to carry because it allows Searle to more fully ‘sell’ the dummy.

An area where Searle has improved is with his carrying. With Agen he was a very good distributor but was less often found galloping into open space. For the data nerds his Try Equivalents per 100 Carries last year with Agen was 6.9, it’s 16.8 this year with Leicester. That is partly coming from being given more opportunities to carry but also his ability to shift the ball wide has helped carve out space through the middle.

If you are a young player or you have a young player in your family, Searle is a great person to watch. His key attribute is giving defenders a chance to miss the tackle. Run straight at a defender and if they miss the tackle then it’s entirely on them. That’s hard to watch back during the analysis session. But give them a reason to miss and not look bad and you’ll bag plenty more clean breaks. For Searle, this comes from carrying and animating the ball in two hands. Plus, that angled run when he does have space to run into forces the inside defender to slide across and because he’s agile enough to step back he can also target the soft inside shoulder.

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