For the Brumbies to win, they need to play “Macqueenball”

They say in sports you have to lose a grand final before you win one. That is the prospect, anyway, facing the ACT Brumbies as they go into a successive Super Rugby finals campaign on Saturday night.

The team they play, the Chiefs, defeated them in the 2013 grand final at Hamilton. It took the All Blacks 24 years to understand that finals rugby is an entirely different ball game from pool-round rugby. After the All Blacks lost in the quarter-finals to France in the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the coaching staff did some deep thinking into how to play finals rugby.

What they discovered is that they needed to have total clarity on how to play each specific final. And they had to have contingency plans for coping with unforeseeable events. The best contingency plan is to score enough points before trouble arrives, as it did for the Brumbies in the last 20 minutes of their final against the Chiefs.

Where the Brumbies need clarity in their qualifying final is knowing whether to play “Jakeball” or “Macqueenball”.

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Throughout this season, the Brumbies have tended to play Jakeball, the incessant kicking, restrictive game plan that was introduced last year to the franchise by its South African coach, Jake White.

But when a run of losses threatened to derail the team’s finals chances, the Brumbies adopted their former and most successful (in terms of Super Rugby titles) mode of playing, Macqueenball.

Rod Macqueen, the founding coach of the Brumbies, devised a game plan that emphasised hard-working and hard-running forwards (think Owen Finegan), clever running halves (George Gregan and Stephen Larkham) and big-finishing outside backs (Joe Roff).

The engine that drove this game plan was the continuity game, the patient ball-in-hand passing game designed to create the inevitable openings for the big forwards and backs to run through to score tries after many phases of play.

Last weekend, after several previous attempts, the Brumbies unleashed their complete 2014 version of Macqueenball. Their play was a revelation as they tore into the Western Force and had them out of the finals and themselves in by half-time, scoring three tries to one and leading 21-6.

Orchestrating the final 47-25 victory was Matt Toomua, who scored three tries in the Larkham manner. This was the first hat-trick of tries scored by a Brumby since Mark Gerrard in the glory days of the 2004 grand final against the Crusaders. Sam Carter and Leon Power were Finegan clones against the Force. Henry Speight provided Roff-like breaks out wide.

When playing to this game plan, the Brumbies looked an immensely better side than the lacklustre and negative team that was crushed several weeks ago by the Waratahs.

The Brumbies won’t beat the Chiefs playing “Jakeball”

Opta Facts suggests a close contest between the Brumbies and the Chiefs. Both sides have conceded exactly the same number of points this season, averaging 23.6 a game. Both sides are the worst on the goal-kicking statistics, a reason for the Brumbies to ditch Jakeball rugby that is reliant on kicking the penalties for winning results.

The Brumbies have the worst scrum success in the tournament (76 per cent); the Chiefs’ success rate is 92 per cent, the best of any team this season. Successful Jakeball requires a domination of the scrums and the lineouts to force penalties.

The Brumbies, at least, have a great lineout, where Ben Mowen does the calling and most of the jumping. They have scored 22 tries from lineouts, twice as many as the Chiefs. So attacking from this set-piece is a strong option for the Brumbies. The second qualifying final is at Durban, where the Sharks play the Highlanders.

The New Zealanders are facing a thrashing. The Sharks have made the fewest off-loads, the fewest breaks, the most kicks and conceded more turnovers than any other team. But they steal more lineouts, have the best defence, have scored more tries from turnovers and get awarded more penalties/free kicks than any other side. This is authentic Jakeball rugby, as you would expect from a side coached by Jake White.

Predictions: the Brumbies to win if they play Macqueenball and the Sharks to win playing Jakeball.

For the full description of “Jakeball” see: Super Rugby: Play-Off Preview – Cell C Sharks vs Highlanders, on Rugby-Talk.com