Ian Madigan

So it does favour the counter-rooking as opposed to the poaching.

I think the issue is in your question, Joe.

You've seen enough rugby over the years to know what a rush defence looks like.

And it didn't look like that last night.

But we want to be a team that gets off the line and gets in the opposition faces.

But the issue is,

there's the capabilities of the players and dealing with fatigue and doing it in a cohesive manner we're not able to do it consistently so what that results in as an attacking player having a team getting off the line pretty hard but then sitting that is actually a lovely picture to attack against because you know what you're facing what can actually be really frustrating and um

ironic to be referencing Zebra, but they're a team that just solely control.

And the Australians do it, but obviously in a more skilled fashion.

And that is actually really difficult to attack against because you're going from width to width, you're making gradual progress, but...

What you want is players to jump out of the line and then have dog legs, and then you're looking to expose that with short passing, long passing, creative lines of running.

But we're doing neither.

So we're getting off the line, and then we're being picked off.

And if they can get around us, then our backfield is very disconnected, and it's really hard to save us.

Okay.

If you're like Leinster, for example, if they're a rush defense team, we know that.

But if the rush defense gets high enough and you still get broken on the outside, the scramble can save you.

And it often does with the Leinster defense.

But the scramble, the front line of the defense was not getting high enough for the scramble to be able to save us last night.

It is.