@pakman said in SF Crusaders v Chiefs:
@kiwi_expat said in SF Crusaders v Chiefs:
@Canes4life said in SF Crusaders v Chiefs:
Can Robertson just take Foster’s place already.
Yep, Incredible defense. Every Crusaders player knew what to do in every situation. Their line speed in defence, the outside defender coming up quicker to shut wide play down, only three max in the tackle, another defensive line quickly forming behind the ruck, and great communication. Then rinse and repeat. Brilliant coaching, Robertson surely has the best defensive set-up in the Southern Hemisphere.
A big part of this is ruck judgement. If ball not obvious to be won, Chch is excellent at clearing their players out so arguably the ruck has ended. I'm not sure where the offside line is in such instances but they appear to line up parallel with the foremost opposition player. So in practice, perhaps 2m downfield from where the halfback picks up the ball.
By the time the ball gets to the oppo first five Chch defense is over the advantage line.
Really makes it difficult to impossible to get go forward from slow ball.
My gut tells me the offside line needs to be moved further back, but not sure exactly how to achieve that.
Maybe make it 5m back from front of first oppo player at the ruck which was?
5m gaps are very hard to police and would end up with lots of debatable calls. I thought that interpretation they tried of being 'clearly onside' rather than 'clearly offside' worked well. It wouldn't stop good ruck management defence like that you describe but it made a very clear method for the AR to identify those small half steps that make a big difference in these situations.
(I'm not complaint about anything in this game here just discussing the offside line topic)