So I had my semi regular chat with one of the boys on the coaching staff and took the opportunity to ask him about our line speed and defensive system (i.e, why don’t we move up?). I preface this by saying that I was 100% with Quigs in that I thought that moving quickly up off the line and “swarming” in defence was the best thing a team can do (because Melbourne do it).
Evidently this is not the case for all teams. There are two movements in a defensive unit, the up and back (or line speed) and the side to side (or slide/shutting the gate). After early training sessions and considering the relatively advanced age of our props and our taller, slower centres , Petere Sharp (who is in charge of this stuff) decided that swiftly moving up and back took too much out of our pigs and our taller slower centres and harmed their lateral movement. Sharp argues that the side to side movement (which he calls slide for outside plays and shutting the gate for inside balls) is more important to get right than the up and back stuff. So far he has been proved correct. Pundits now look at the Sharks as the benchmark in the NRL for lateral defence. Put a lot of it down to Jezza and Gal who play this way naturally. Melbourne go the other way, Bellyache coaches them into sprinting off the line to cut time down and to wrestle long in the play the ball… But when you move up fast, it’s hard to move sideways....... That works for Melbournes squad, but when you consider we have Gibbs, Best, Pom, Robson, Jez, Gal (None of whom are really built to be consistenly explosive) I can see the logic of it.
Our system relies on a relatively good wrestle (only just behind Melbz) which allows us to rest on the line and move up a few steps, "catch" and focus on our lateral movement. Its why we beat the Storm and Manly, but are susceptible to good individual players like Inglis, Hayne and Barba but then again; who isn’t?
We have also spent a lot of time perfecting the art of turtling the opposition and I believe we are also the envy of the league in our conversion rate of tacklers rolling the attacker on their back thanks largely to Jez Pom and Gibbs.
Im sure Sharpe would like us to move with a bit more urgency when we are under the pump, but rest assured there is a complex system at work and so far, it is working.