Hopwood wrote:
Looking from the north stand I was shocked how easily cas scored from the scrum at half time. Looking at the try on TV we got our numbers wrong . Cas set up with 4 attackers on the left and two on the right but we set up 3 and 3. Not only that but Jowitt was in the scrum in the loose forward position making it impossible for him to get across once they got quick ball from the scrum . I am no coach these are professional players surely they should know that you mirror the opposition set up at a scrum when you are defending or they automatically have an overlap and why is our full back not in the defensive line?
I haven’t looked at this specific incident but it’s not always appropriate to defend with equal numbers to the attackers.
Sometimes teams will put an extra attacker on one side to entice the defending team to do the same. If they do then it might open up space on the other side of the field and if a team has quality players with more speed or more power or both then that space is enough to be a threat despite the equal numbers.
For example, if a play the ball is 30m in from touch and the attacking side puts Greg Inglis and Eric Grothe on the shortside then the defending team would be stupid to just match 2 defenders opposite them. So they may put 3 on the short side leaving them one short on the open side.
Equally if there’s only 20 mars between the play the ball and the touchline a defending team might feel that 2 defenders is enough to defend that space and doesn’t require a 3rd defender even if the attacking side puts 3 on that side.
Sometimes it’s not about matching numbers but defending the space
I hope that I’ve explained that well