Lions and Frogs busting Myths

Here are some I can think off...

1) Tall guys can't make steals - the myth here is that it isn't their job so if they don't do it, who cares? This might just be the most naive myth of them all. As we saw last week and then again yesterday, steals are a massive momentum stuffer. Glasgow could barely put their heads above the parapet last week and they'd lose the ball. Connacht suffered a similar, if not as exaggerated, a fate yesterday. The idea that fetching is the job of one or two specific guys is a complete nonsense. We see two meter tall guys like Francke and Venter regularly stealing the ball while also doing the rest of their job. Fetching is everybody's job. From Cronje to Crappies, Venter to Francke and SJ...every steal is priceless.

Let's, for once and for all, call utter bullshit on the myth that fetching is for some and not for others. It's highly valuable and everybody should contribute where they can. And the more you fetch the more valuable you are.

2) The pro game is too congested for expression - It's not just the Lions that have made a mockery of this myth. The Champions Cup, thank heavens for the Frenchies, have shown that space is a product, not a commodity. The most recent high quality rugby I have watched has proven that. The in form sides in those competitions all create the space and then exploit the space.

Kiwi teams always created space in SR and dominated us by doing that. Champions cups teams do the same and the result is the same. The Lions are doing it too and the results are showing.

By extension, the myth of a 12 needing to be a donkey brain crash baller that kills all momentum is dead.

Creating and exploiting space will always be the most effective type of rugby.

The congestion myth is nonsense of the highest order.

3) Offloading is too risky - This statement might be true if the benefits of offloading were not as clearly voluminous as they are. To be considered "too" risky, we'd have to see far less returns yielded from a strong offload game. Again, all the most recent high quality rugby I have watched has shown that the less you offload the less likely you are to score. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that offloading in contact is up there as probably the highest return exploit in the game. I'm speaking from a touch of bias and an imperfect memory, but I think one would have trouble proving me wrong.

I know I have picked all the low hanging fruit here. So perhaps not left too many obvious myths to be busted...sorry haha

Are there any other myths you can think of that the Lions and Frenchies have busted this season?

Well as you know Plum I 100% believe if we did those things our WC win would have been less hair raising. But the counter argument is with a dominant defense that turns opposition attacks into scrums and with a dominant pack that turns scrums into penalties and with a kicker that’s money in big matches….we can achieve the same result at lower risk.

And the response to that is one of the links in that chain breaks….other teams finally realize they have to prioritize the scrum or our kicker has an off day…we are left with no Plan B.

But honestly as the Lions have shown, with good coaching the skills you mentioned are coachable and I’d take the risk of some initial failures to play a more exciting, more aggressive brand of rugby.This year is the last chance though…we won’t be doing much experimenting next year unless we lose. Witness the Wellington test.

The next one to be properly busted, by whoever, is "playoff rugby". It's a knockout game so now you MUST play tight safety first rugby. I already heard the commentators in the Lions game asking the question about how the Lions style will translate to playoff rugby. Answer - it will work fine. Knockout games offer a psychological hurdle, the essence of the sport remains the same.

The Boks blew that playoff game mindblock away to a certain extent in the 2019 WC final by playing a far more open game than they did in the semi. France but for a dubious decision or two late game might have done it to the Boks in the '23 quarter. Against any other defense in world rugby they would have. As it is it was close enough anyway that you can say these games can absolutely be won and dominated by playing an expansive game - the French did dominate us in that game (60% poss, 63% terr, 43 defenders beaten to 12, 108 rucks to 59), they just got a little too helter skelter and we had Pollard and a tremendous scrambling defense. Not to mention two extremely fortuitous bounces from poorly fielded high balls that both led to tries. Almost an anomaly.