SaintsFan wrote:
So in your book of rugby league, who leads the defensive slide?
OK, please excuse the coarse wording of my last post. Here is my full analysis of the situation, which will cover communication in the defensive line. Please have a read and, if you disagree, let me know why.
Get the match up on your player and wait for the replay of the try from behind the try line,
pause it when Hodgson has the ball.
Hodgeson has two men outside of him, Bridge and Monaghan.
The 3 saints defenders closest to the touch line are Wilkin, Jones and Meli.
In a 3 on 3 situation, Wilkin would move up on Hodgeson, using simple communication to the man outside of him "ball carriers mine", so that Jones will know there's no danger on his inside and can continue to push up onto Bridge with a similar communication to Meli who can mark Monaghan. So the communication in this situation will start at the man marking the ball carrier and come out from him.
However, Wilkin (3rd defender in) is not in a position to tackle Hodgeson (for reasons I'll cover later). When Hodgeson receives the ball he is in a 3 on 2 situation. Now, from Tony Smith's point, the only reason this situation will not result in a try is poor execution on Wire's part.
Jones, realising that Wilkin is not in position to take Hodgeson, must re-adjust. If he stays on Bridge (2nd man in), then Hodgson will effectivly have a free run to the try line. Like wise, once Meli knows Josh has gone for Hodgson, he will then move in to Bridge so save him walking through a gap if Hodgson gets a simple short pass away.
Essentially, once there's a 3 on 2 situation, there's going to be a gap. All the defenders can do is make sure that the gap is as far away from the ball carrier as possible in order that the attack has to work for the score. In this case they would have needed quick hands, which could easily result in a knock on (see a similar situation in the game against Leeds when the VR disallowed the try for the knock on/forward pass), or the miss pass which is often poorly executed. Unfortunatley for us, it was Brett Hodgeson, a very skilled player, who was there to make a good miss pass for Monaghan to score.
How did this 3 on 2 situation arise? Wind your TV player back to the play of the ball.
From the touch line, the teams line up as follows
Monaghan, Bridge, Grix and Hodgson
Marked by
Meli, Jones, Wilkin and Flanaghan respectively.
From here, Grix is being marked by Wilkin and Hodgson by Flanaghan.
As the ball is played to the dummy half, Grix makes an early run, back towards the ruck across the face of Hodgson, meaning he (grix) has gone from being 3rd man in to 4th, and crossed from Wilkin's channel into Flanaghan's.
The effectiveness of this dummy run, however, has meant that Wilkin has continued to track Grix even when he became Flanaghan's responsibilty and left him in no position to cover his channel with is now occupied by Brett Hodgson.
So the fault lies either with Wilkin's action, or a lack or communication between Wilkin and Flanaghan in order to hold their respective channels, or a little of both.
The fault does not lie with Jones and it does not lie with Meli, who were both on a hiding to nothing as soon as the 3 on 2 overlap was created.
I'd be interested to hear a different take on the situation, if anyone has one.
