Posted by If an academic were to study Collective Amnesia then they might want to take a look at the people who seem to expect the festive Welsh derbies to be incredible displays of high quality, exciting running rugby.
It’s Wales in late December/early January so the weather is not conducive, it’s the middle of a long season and a long fixture block where players aren’t generally in peak physical condition, it’s back-to-back derbies which take a lot out of the legs, and they’re derbies which nobody wants to lose. Add all that together and you get some of the gargantuan battles we have seen across the last two weeks.
New Year’s Day at the Arms Park was an absolute embodiment of that where Cardiff and Ospreys went toe-to-toe for 80 minutes in a game which may not have had the quality at times, but the intensity and physicality never dipped below 110%. A tense tactical battle between two sides keen to impose themselves on the game but too regularly straying over the line on that front.
For the away side that largely looked like James Fender’s croc roll on Dan Thomas towards the end of the first half which brought a red card from Ben Breakspear’s pocket, while the hosts were guilty of going hard at the tackle area and, in the final quarter, the scrum, and finishing up comfortably on the wrong side of the penalty count with yellow cards shown to Teddy Williams and Rhys Litterick during the second half.
In the end it was 13-13 on the scoreline with nothing between the two teams, leaving all disappointed as Cardiff walked away feeling we failed to capitalise on what should have been a lengthy man-advantage, while the Ospreys were no doubt left ruing missed opportunities to win having had the majority of the game during the second half.
Focusing on the Blue & Blacks and when looking at how we didn’t manage to exploit the 14-man opposition the continuing theme is something that actually happened before the red card – Gabriel Hamer-Webb going off injured.
Running a 6/2 bench with Aled Davies and Rory Jennings as the outside back options meant that wing cover was at a premium. Matt Sherratt could have brought Davies on and switched Ellis Bevan to the wing, he could have brought Jennings on and moved Ben Thomas to full-back with Cam Winnett switching out wide, or he could have brought Jennings into midfield and moved Louie Hennessey out wide.
With it being 15 v 15 at the time he opted to go for the latter, presumably the least disruptive in terms of reshuffles and players playing out of position, as well as maintaining control over proceedings with three-quarters of the game to go thanks to the hoarding of experience and footballing options in midfield.
Unfortunately what transpired though was that, particularly after the red card where space should have been available to play into as the Ospreys replaced full-back Max Nagy with loose forward James Ratti, the Blue & Blacks’ attacking game had been completely hamstrung by the lack of strike running in the 13 channel.
Thomas and Jennings struggled to link up in midfield, with it being unclear which was actually playing at 13, Hennessey clearly had not run on the wing in the maximum of three full team training sessions he had been involved in since signing on loan from Bath, and the departure of Hamer-Webb removed the real top end pace in the back line.
Other knock on impacts from that enforced replacement was that the aerial game suffered with Hennessey slightly unsure on positioning, and a large gap between the 12s and the wingers when kicking to compete on our own terms, while Dan Kasende had a brilliant afternoon in the skies and was a constant menace off the Ospreys wing.
So what could Cardiff have done? Well we could have switched up the kicking game and really kicked for length to try and exploit any space in the opposition back field and secure territory, but the counter argument there is that the away side could just have kicked back to compete on their terms, or if they kicked to touch then we were struggling to break them down as mentioned above.
Alternatively we could have really tightened and narrowed the attack, try to just hold possession and build pressure to milk penalties, but that comes with the possibility of being turned over by an Ospreys side with a sadistic love of defending the fringes of the breakdown and who were stereotypically physical in the tackle area.
Having had a few re-watches and given myself some time to think about it, I’m left with the feeling that it was just one of those days for Cardiff where it wasn’t to be. We certainly do need to get better at playing against 14, maintaining our discipline and executing at certain moments, but ultimately the specific circumstances of the winger shortage, injury to Hamer-Webb and need for a 6/2 bench all conspired against us.
Add in some noticeable scrum struggles, particularly across the first hour, and there were just too many obstacles to overcome in order to get a much-desired win against the Ospreys at the Arms Park. To end on a major positive though, potentially for the first time in history, we did manage to beat our western rivals in one specific area – the maul.
Two driving maul tries and a number of penalties won going forward, as well as consistently turning them over or repelling them from five-metres out in defence gave Cardiff the upper hand at that set piece where we’ve traditionally struggled. Yes, they were without the King of the Mauls in Adam Beard, but Jockey also opted to keep Josh McNally in reserve and we still managed to dominate before his arrival.
Still-new Forwards Coach Corniel Van Zyl deserves a lot of credit for the work he’s done in that area since his arrival over the summer, and it will no doubt be crucial as we head on into our tougher second half of the campaign.
There’s a bit of time to rest and recover now for the Blue & Blacks before attention switches back to the European Challenge Cup and a trip to Perpignan. The French side beat La Rochelle over the festive period but remain steeped in a Top14 relegation battle so may continue to pick rotated sides in this competition, offering us the opportunity to get a much-needed win in the hunt for a home knockout game.
Allez Les Bleus & Noirs! #TrustTheProcess
Cardiff Rugby Life 