Dealing with defeat
MUNSTER’S video analyst George Murray called to Alan Gaffney’s house in Limerick at 3.30 last Sunday afternoon. They watched the Leicester-Wasps Heineken Cup game. They then went to work on the deconstruction of the game against Castres.
“We had nothing to eat,” Gaffney recalls, “and he left my place at 8.50pm, so that was nigh on four and a bit hours. We then met in UL on Monday morning at eight and worked until one and then gave a presentation to the players - and that was only the defensive side of things.
“We walked out the door at 7.50 on Monday night and met again at seven on Tuesday morning, so since the game on Friday night, George and myself have spent 14 or 15 hours on the video and George will probably have done another ten hours on his own as well.”
That’s a lot of time watching TV. But this is work - not play.
“Tuesday, we took out 16 clips of back-line play. We went through those clips individually with the backs at 9am before they contributed. We work out how Castres are defending and how better we can attack in certain parts of the pitch. The forwards join us at 9.30 and we broaden it to look at the team pattern and we will discuss maybe 15 team plays with varying patterns. We look to see do we play the midfield, do we punch down that side... Then we reach agreement about a certain part of the pitch and the plays we can use in that area. But we never work more than three plays because by then the players have to play with their eyes anyway. We never take their flair away.
“George and I will put it together and we then give the players a product and with the players we will make a decision on how we play a play. To a minor extent it is like a game of chess - until you get to the stage where you play with your eyes.”
“I TAKE my own camera to the game,” says George Murray “because television does not give you a full picture of what’s going on - on and off the ball. I do my own footage, the full 80 minutes of the game and it is all in wide angle so we can see what people are doing on and off the ball. TV will just follow the ball and what’s going on around it. Once I have a spot that’s high enough, I can do my part of things. After the match, I transfer the footage onto my analysis computer and I will cut the game up into zones. Each zone focuses on one aspect of the game - line-out, scrum, possession, time spent defending and so on. That’s ready a couple of hours after the game, so I am then able to transfer the initial first edit straight onto the laptops of (assistant coach) Brian Hickey and (defensive coach) Graham Steadman. Last week on the plane on the way home they had a couple of hours to look at that and they were then able to take out the clips they wanted when they got home.
“On the Saturday when I got home, I then began to do individual players statistics, which involve ball carries, tackle counts, assist tackles, missed tackles - all that type of thing.
“Then I chop the video down to each player and each one will then get a video or a DVD which has been broken down from 80 minute to 10 or 15 minutes which covers all of their involvement on and off the ball.
“That’s why I use the wide angle shot so we can see what they’re doing and measure their work-rate around the field.
“Each player will then come in to Alan (Gaffney) or Brian (Hickey) and we show them their segment individually and they’ll ask question or make comments, as will the coaches. But it is a totally positive thing; it is not about criticising anyone, it is about learning.
“You have to remember too that we have the luxury of being able to watch it over and over again, but the player only had a split second to make his decision on the pitch.
“If he has made the wrong decision, then we will highlight it and try and provide alternatives for him if he finds himself in the same situation again. But we can get into serious detail if necessary and the individual coaches like Paul McCarthy, the scrum coach, can act on what they see.
“I do analysis on referees as well so we can show players what their trends are, not so much that we can play around them, but are aware on what they are most likely to focus on. It’s not trying to take advantage of the referee or dictate to him, it is simply trying to identify the fact that he gives, say, an average of ten penalties every match for midfield offside.
“If that’s the case then it is paramount for us to avoid being offside in midfield.
“The one-on-ones work great with the players because they get to see what they are doing on and off the ball and when it comes to the next game their mind is focused on what they had done well or done poorly the previous week. It’s a progression thing and players have adapted to it very well.
“Of course it is possible to over-elaborate and easy to get bogged down - as Alan says: ‘over analysis, self-paralysis.’
“But we try and keep it to a reasonable level where the players are comfortable with it.”
ANALYSIS allows the coaching staff the detail the press and public do not have - a good example was the media perception (as well as that of those watching on TV) that Christian Cullen’s missed tackle was responsible for David Bory’s try last Friday night in Castres.
Gaffney says he is not happy with Cullen’s tackle - “not happy at all” - but points out it was not the single reason Castres scored.
“I’m not happy with a number of people.
“On that specific chase, two of our guys chased it very well, but they left a great separation between them which Albouy got in between.
“The three guys who should have chased equally, which would have allowed us compress, didn’t chase. They were totally exonerated by some of the press. As far as we’re concerned, we would attribute nearly as much to what they did, as we would the final tackle by Cullen.”
GEORGE MURRAY reckons that square eyes are part of the deal in all of this, but there are up sides to even this geometric ailment. “It’s fantastic when you see something happen on the pitch that you’ve been directly involved with. For example Alan and Brian will analyse the defensive pattern of any particular opposition and if they identify something which subsequently results in us scoring, then it really feels great to see that come off. When something like that happens we all know it has happened because we’ve all seen it during the week.”
The coach concurs in so much as he obviously sees more on tape than he does at the game. “I very rarely talk at length to the players after a game. The only time I’ve done it in two-and-a-half years here was after the Cardiff game last year when we were really terrible, shocking.
Managers do that sometimes to vent their frustrations, but that’s not the way it should be. Anyway, there is so much less you see during a game because you’re focused on the ball, so it is better if you keep you emotions in check in the dressing room, particularly if you’ve lost. You then go back and look at it in the cold light of day and you try and pull the answers from it.”
MUNSTER’S sanguine boss admits that the level of analysis is almost getting to American Football proportions now, but he insists that the difference between the two sports is that rugby does not take the flair from its players in the same way its American counterpart does. He also maintains that rugby, unlike American Football, does not allow for completely defensive outfits to win its biggest prizes.
“Defence is winning games these days and we’ve got to look at ways of breaking down defences. But remember we’ve only scored three tries in the Heineken Cup this season and while we’ve only conceded one, that is disappointing. We left a lot of points out on the pitch against Harlequins and the Ospreys, but last week we didn’t, as Brian Hickey put it, play with enough ambition. We have the ability to score and break these defences down. But we need to have the belief in ourselves to do that. What we have to do is play the mental part of the game and play the plays to do it.
George, having been an intrinsic part of the extensive analysis, maintains that the approach to today’s game is not going to be a whole lot different to last week.
“We know we didn’t really perform last week so individually and collectively we have to improve.
“Not a whole lot is going to change, simply that we want to achieve what we set out to achieve. We didn’t do that last week. We were starved of possession last week and a lot of our stuff just didn’t get going - our back play especially. We didn’t have the right sort of possession from line-outs and so we didn’t get a base to produce what we really wanted to.”
ALAN GAFFNEY says that if Munster are to win today then not only do the players have to play better, but he has to coach better and he will use whatever tool at his disposal to do so.
“I’m the one who is paid to come up with answers.
“I’ll do the work and I want the players to buy into that.
“But there are some players who want all the answers given to them and others who will sit down with you and try and work out the answers.
“So you have to play the individuals that way.
“Some guys I’ve got to coach and coerce and others I’ve got to dictate to. But the bottom line is that I have got to coach better and get more out of the players.
“Obviously I didn’t last week and while the players have to take some responsibility, so do I.”
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