Rugby Teams Are Training for the Wrong Thing. Leinster Learned the Hard Way | Kennedy Tsimba

Then we look at Bordeaux, they were sitting on nine scrums and they were also sitting on 12 lineouts, but they had 32 transition opportunities. A key thing is that they never ever train where there is perfect weather, where there's blue skies and there's no challenges. They said that it's so important that there has to be unstable conditions. It must be as unstable as possible. We believe that the easiest way to score is when the defence is not set.

The games, especially at club level, have started sort of saying that whoever can win the chaos battle is most likely going to win the game. And that's what Bordeaux have forced Leinster to sort of play in that way. And that sort of suits Bordeaux right down to a team. This is the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, only on Megaphone Rugby. welcome back to the lose boss happy podcast and you griffin and i have been having a couple of you know important guests on yeah but i think none more important than the one we have tonight not only because of who he is and who he was but what is bringing to the table in terms of of rugby and rugby's future how's it you tell us about this yeah how's it welcome back to the bulls lose pass podcast as i've decided to trademark us so we get some balance on mega thin robbie for a change but yeah we are chain uh joined by a gentleman who we've been talking to for a long time this podcast has been maybe the longest one in the in the making that we've had since we've been doing this the most homework certainly that has gone into doing it and we're delighted to be joined by bulls skills coach kennedy chimber kennedy thank you so much for joining us on the show thank you india and uh you thank you very much uh it's an honor to to be joining you guys once again i'm loving the work you guys have been doing on the podcast thank you you so much so before we go any further what is a skills coach because we've had neil debrain on the pod and obviously he's the attack coach so if anybody who's not sure what is a skills coach yeah well um i think a skills coach is it can be defined in different uh forms obviously depending on what your union and your team requires from you ideally um a skills coach is going to be supporting your your coaches of the attack defense um you know any skills that surrounding individual skills so you basically sit back and try observe any connection so you're almost a bridge between where that's passing where that's footwork where that's a tackle tech anything that players want to do extra they they meet up with you and you're able to sort of refine that and i think the added advantage that we've also gone into cognitive skills training which is very important um it's an area that isn't addressed um so we're talking about your hand-eye combination your decision making your scanning your you know vision training and sort of things like that and um that's why we started venturing into you know technology and and the use of that to enhance individual skills so it is very broad but it's it's almost that you've got to find what your the need of the team is and you speak to your all the individual players some of them have got needs they want to look at their clips individually and you you do analysis and um yeah i think that's the quality part where you can sit with certain players and go through their games, you know, just clip by clip, and then just look at smaller detail and look at pattern recognition and be able to work it from there.

But yeah, that's sort of what, you know, the modern day skills coaches do, but I suppose they're different everywhere in different clubs because the demand is different. If I ask this question, I know we're not going to talk about the Bulls, but what does the Bulls require of you as a skills coach? I'm very curious to hear that we're not talking about the games enough what he's talking about what are the rules one from you yeah i suppose that is is just marrying you know the the skills gap that's needed between your players when they're defending and attacking and also what what they need extras whether it be kicking skills or touches passes so it is quite wide but all you're there to support to make sure the player can feel if he needs something extra he can come to you and and see if you can mold that whether it is finding a specialist in a hooker a hooker you know one of the old hookers or a jumper uh areas that um that they need help and that's sort of what what you do and that's um it's worked pretty well so i'm guessing you spent a lot of time with marco lately teaching him how to play hooker yeah i'd like to take credit but he's really done that uh on his own and he's really done an excellent job and it's yeah it's been been quite um quite impressed of seeing how he's uh he really developed in that multi role we would love to talk to you for an hour about the bulls and what you guys are doing there but that's not the point of today's podcast the point of today's podcast is this what's the best way to describe it would you say it's a theory a hypothesis a thesis a body of work a scientific study that you've been doing was it was it for world rugby or you've submitted it to world rugby all about transitions so you can say all of the above because i i've been working with the university of pretoria and obviously doing a bit of lectures there around this um uh topic and it's it's been known as a thesis it's been known as a case study it's i think you'd probably put it between those two and it's basically been a passion project of mine for a number of years and um i haven't it's not working with world rugby but obviously the idea is the final coaching manual um is something that i'd like to contribute to world rugby to to for that to go around to coaches all over the world um and just sharing what i've i've picked up in the case study and it's really been interesting because it's also been applied learning in terms of um you know doing real analysis on games and also you know speaking to players what they feel uh around it you know and that's been uh very very um you know yeah it's been mind-boggling well i can't wait to hear hear about it but before we get into the detail and the kind of high level things that you've noticed as a you know a rugby professional one of the most common questions or comments that we get here on the loose pass is you guys used the words that i didn't know and then you spoke about it for an hour and i didn't understand anything that you were saying so let's just start off with super basic we're here to talk about transitions today yeah what is a transition okay thank you for that that's a great question why i say so is that because the word transition has been sort of uh you know moved around and it's it's it's really it's it's quite a loose term because it can be used for anything really there's transition when when i speak about in presentations i'm doing a a transition presentation they ask is it transition from when you were a professional player to to coaching or so so you have to be more deliberate and more accurate and that's sort of driven me to to say listen i think this is so important that i think you need to build a language around it right so um we did a bit of a poll um on on the social media and we gave them a couple of options of words that i've heard being used around and i think words that i think are applicable and the voting came in and a strong vote came for the word shift because it really sort of um you know it expresses everything that that we we sort of been talking about and i think uh that has already started um getting some good traction because everywhere i'm going people now say to me hey listen that was a good shift you put in there so it's uh it's starting to to gain its own traction but it really is um i think it it explains everything because the main idea is the shifter of mindset so you asked what transition so So transitional shift basically means a change, right? It's a change in movement. It's a change in a situation.

It's a change in an area. And especially if we're talking in sports in general, it's about where if I'm attacking, I lose the ball or a position, and the opposition have got a chance to then attack. So basically, I've gone from an attacking mindset to a defensive mindset. and that's why i think at this heart and the center of this is that transition is actually a huge mindset and i suppose that's why uh it being as a coaching uh model has been difficult because people are probably saying how do you coach mindset you know but yeah that is exactly what it is so it is a change from attack to defense and defense to attack we definitely want to get into how you coach it and how you you learn it and how players become good at that and i really love that the word shift i think it's a great way to explain it but before we get into the kind of how to coach it you've said and as we've been talking we've talked about how important transitions and shifts now are in rugby union and in the modern game so could you talk to us a bit about why it's so important and is it becoming more important yeah no so i i think the best way to probably explain is there's a number of shifts in the game, right? And when we start analysing at a high level, because it applies right down to your grassroots.

I mean, I went to watch some mini rugby the other day and there's absolute chaos there. And the principles are all the same because when I do watch them and watch senior rugby, there's a lot of principles that are similar. So to explain what a shift is, what it looks like in rugby, if we say, because everyone thinks that a transition is somebody's knocked on the ball and then you play from there. So that's not it, as we've put already, that it's any time that I have lost possession. And the two types of the possession is I lose possession willingly.

In other words, I've given it away willingly. So those types of transitions are either I've kicked it to the opposition and I've done it out of my own will, right? But I still have lost position. So I've gone from attacking to defending. And then there's the position where it's unwilling, it's been forced onto you, where you've been forced into a skill error, or you've, you know, you've made an error of some sort.

And that's where it's unforced. So those two positions have got their own elements and own principles to work around already. So we look at forced ones can be a line-out. Line-outs have got a massive transition, losses and shifts in play. So overthrows, skew line-out, a contest, there's a lot of them that come from a line-out.

Scrums, not so much. It's pretty rare to try to get a tight end and then you play off it. A lot of the times there's penalties being played. And what happens is opposition usually kills the ball at the source you know so so there is that one and then obviously you've got your handling errors you've got your your your your interceptions and then a main one that uh that people might not know and that also lifts up the stats when we look at it is the kicking right and that's when you've just mentioned the modern game it has changed because kicking has become a vital vital part of that that whole framework so this framework that i i've been working on it um it sort of it it looks at all of them but obviously it looks at the kicking as a high set because on any graphs you look at the kicking one is is always way up there so yeah those are sort of the the types of uh transition shifts that are in rugby so so whenever people have to watch a game now i think you can you can look at them and there are the that's where um that's why we say the moments have become important because they're actually more than you think they are because obviously how many people are counting a line out has been lost or a a a a scrum or a knock-on um has been lost uh so i don't think they might just put it under turnover but um actually it is a shift in position because any position you get in a game is important that's why i think set pieces are important but this is also a source of possession and that's why it's important because when I show you the numbers as an example, you will then say to me, oh, okay, well, maybe that changes the picture. Just before we go down that stats rabbit hole, because I could see Hugh Griffith's eyes lighting up when you started talking about statistics and the likes, sort of make sure people, we're going to show you some clips at the end of this, towards the end of this video, where Kennedy's gone and analyzed the Champions Cup final between Bordeaux and Leinster, and he's going to give us examples from that game, so we can see, we always say, don't tell show, so we're going to see how it works.

So before we continue, I just want to make that point. So just stick around and look out for those examples. Thanks for you. Yeah, so Kennedy, if you just let us know, give us a kind of idea, how many transitions are there in a game of rugby? Yeah, so I would like to perhaps maybe just ask you guys a question and see what you'd give it back to me.

Before we even get to the coaching side of it, if one had to say, which is the biggest source of possession? in rugby you know from your guys thoughts what would you think if you had to sort of you know put them in a pool constantly in a game it's a position anytime with a you know whether as long as i've got the ball to to do the restart that's a position whether i i get it or not is another thing but yeah sources of positions it's got to be kicks surely it has to be kicks it depends of course which which team you're playing but there are some teams out there kicking 40 times a game So I would say it has to be that. Envia, what would you say? I hate these questions, man. I'm too old for this.

I had no idea. Come on, man. You're blowing my cover here. Okay. So I think maybe if I can break it down, let's just look at it from the game on Saturday.

So if I have to just check on my stats, on the details that I have. and we're looking at scrums, right? If we look at Leinster scrums, they were jotted down as four scrums. So they had a position of four scrums and they had 19 lineouts, okay? And let's just keep in mind that, yes, having those as stats doesn't mean that, obviously, you use that position, you know?

So it could be a lineout that goes skew, but it's been marked down as your lineout, okay? So those are the possession stats for Leinster. And if we have to look at their transition stats, and I've included any time they gave ball away, but we sort of counted that if ball goes into touch, that goes into a set piece, which could be line-out. Or if it's knocked on, it goes into a scrum. So we don't count those.

We're talking about ball that stays in field and that's playable. And whether it's been kicked, whether it's been knocked on, whether it's been however it is if it's a transition and they've given you a ball we talking about how many possessions do you get in a game so they got four scrums they got 19 line outs and for their transition they got 20 of them in the game right so then we look at Bordeaux they were sitting on nine scrums and they were also sitting on 12 line outs but they had 32 transition opportunities so if we have to look at the importance of possession I mean if you guys owned a retail store if I have to give example i always use this in my presentations and your retail store had cell phones tvs and did repairs and then they said the the one that brings the most value is uh your your repairs but um your trainees that are selling uh products have only been trained on the cell phones and the televisions would you guys make a corporate shift or decision with that definitely that is a really great way of putting it i hadn't thought about it at all that's definitely something i'm going to take away from this podcast already that idea of you know rugby players spend all monday to friday working on scrums working on line outs and first phase moves and things but they get sometimes almost double the number of transitions and they do have either of those things yeah and and the challenging part about it yes definitely set piece is so important i'm i'll be the first one to put up a hand i'd rather have a good set piece than anything else but unfortunately the game if you look at the percentages they've made it from the last reports that i saw from world rugby and i'm obviously trying to discuss with them to get the updated ones and they're looking at it as 60 of the games unstructured and 40 percent is structured so if i had to sort of ask you you you um it's a it's not a true question but it can be a tricky question so there's there's a term obviously predictability right and there's unpredictability so in in the game of rugby if we had to sort of look at where does predictability start and where does it end right what would you give a percentage in terms of um percentage for this is where predictability starts and it ends there and unpredictability starts here and ends there in terms of percentage wise gosh that's a hard question i'm not sure uh so if i think it through because obviously we've been looking at the champions cup final to to have this example and it's funny because i i clipped up something as well which we'll have a look at later where we talk about the predictability and i think that leinster were very predictable so i would say that it depends where you are on the field i think if you're in if you're in your own 22 especially i think a lot of teams are very predictable that they're gonna they're just gonna exit you know but i would say that between between rock two and rock five or six i would say that most teams should be fairly predictable is it okay but but so in in if we had to say um let's say from a line out right i've got the ball i'm hooker i'm about to i throw the line on where does so it's predictable that i'm going to throw the because that's a restart yeah where does the unpredictability start when the ball leaves his hands I guess thank you thank you right same thing as a kickoff yeah so when the ball leaves the moment the moment I bounce it can bounce either way I perhaps aiming right but it goes left so if we had to then look at the game before we even get to the phases I mean if it's unpregnable at the restart, doesn't that mean that maybe the ratio is almost like 18, 90% or so? Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. And why I talk about it in this much is that through the case study I've worked, we've seen that the psychological part of the game is so, so important.

And what happens is nobody wants change. And that's something that sort of, you know, I found out because I also spoke to corporate companies and find out that anytime they try to introduce a new product or a new system at work, how do they go about it, right? Because I was saying that I want to introduce a new coaching philosophy. Is there any strategies that I could use to introduce? And they say, listen, there's going to be resistance because change is unstable.

It's something that nobody is comfortable with so if the game of rugby is almost 90 or 50 is unpredictable um surely the best thing to do is get your players to be comfortable in an unstable environment that's making me think so much about a coach like joe schmidt for example whose reputation is of someone who's a very controlling coach always wants control of every situation like the point where he he banned offloads for leinster and things because he just wanted so much control over the situation and it makes sense now why we are generally seeing again coming back to the example of leinster why teams who are trying to maintain that um psychology yes are struggling more yeah yeah no you're so right and and that's sort of where my whole thesis and and case study has come from is that you know we all want to be in a perfect world i'd love it where all our set plays go perfectly but the truth of it is that the moment you know the the structure the structure world goes unstable it's now modern rugby judges you on who can handle that the best you know and we about to just share a side note here is that we spoke to there's a fighter pilot in America that we did an interview as part of our research and they because we wanted to know how come fighter pilots are so good in making decisions under pressure right and the main idea is that i wanted to find out what what what's their methodology in training and they said that a key thing is that they they never ever train where there is perfect weather where there's you know blue skies and and and there's no challenges they said that it's so important that there has to be unstable conditions It must be as unstable as possible. And that's the only way they can train because in emergency and you're under pressure, that's what's going to sort of make you make a better decision. And when you do look at Bordeaux, the moment the game becomes unstable, they have got decision makers that are able to make very good decisions under pressure. And that's because I think they've embraced the mindset of chaos is important. and that's key i i know what clips we've got lined up and i'm already thinking about one or two of them like ah that's that makes that make much more sense already but before we get into the clips which i think we should do in a moment is this just a rugby thing because you talked about speaking to fighter jet pilots so it sounds like it's a global thing where did you look outside of rugby to kind of develop your knowledge about this yeah so i think i my first protocol was football because they are massive and in transition and of course basketball and so both those two sports i i found that they've already formalized um this transition as a coachable and you know section of the game and you know the the discussions i had with um the psychologist for the golden state warriors which is the basketball team in america and so much so much value because when i explained to him this is something that i was exploring and i gave my background why i was i had passion about this subject and he then he then said to me is that um you know when when the golden state warriors had that dynasty and they were playing all this uh fast fast basketball and they played in transition they're always trying to get into transition and i asked him um was it a coaching thing was it a player thing was it led and they said it was first was a psychological uh shift a mind shift and at the beginning i said the mindset is something that i think i sort of picked up he says that everybody is on the same mindset that um we believe that the easiest way to score is when the defense is not set you know and and ultimately uh you know that's what we're probably gonna see in the clips anyway but um yeah that was one thing i took out and then And also I asked them is that, you know, is the player profile, was it important to them?

They said at the beginning it wasn't because they were trying to get the right mindset. And once they had that mindset, then the profile of players that they got into that team suited that. And that's sort of something I've seen from what the French clubs have been doing. You look at Rayasi. I mean, we'll see him in Super Rugby.

He slots and it's a fit, right? So, yeah, so prayer profile is something I learned from the basketball, aside of a lot of other tactics, you know, coaching tactics that they introduced to me, which we've explored in terms of training drills and stuff, because it's quite intricate. They've got a three-lane system that they operate in, in terms of transition. So that's one of the areas. And then also in terms of football, yeah, that is so, yeah, it's just another world.

The way they break down how they go about their transition, because the pressure and press is quite such a big, it's a big element for them in terms of that framework and how the outlet passes work from there. but a lot of it is very similar to to the principles of rugby and what i've done is i've taken a lot of those principles and they fitted right into rugby and yeah it's um it's really been quite a journey yeah that's absolutely fascinating i think we should get into doing some clips now to really understand you know some examples of this and really help the people who are visual learners really understand it so i'm going to queue up the clips now okay kennedy do you want to talk us through this first clip then so this is from just after the 20 minute mark in the champions cup final and leinster have got the ball yeah and i think if you can play through it and so i can just see these are some of the examples that i'm just talking about um you know transition moments we we asked what what is transition and these are elements of transition obviously the kick and we can just see how bordeaux obviously react to um to to to that ball so there it's so it's an opportunity that bordeaux have got and it's about how they they use it so a lot of times we look at the outcomes of a lot of these things and it also paints a good picture so that's sort of what a kick transition looks like do you think with this one if i just ask you about it with this one is this a mistake from lens stickers we can see that tommy o'brien is chasing this kick down here yeah so they they don't want they obviously don't want it to be a transition but it's maybe less than two meters too long but is that a mistake from leinster yeah of course you know the the kicking framework that's why i said it's so important because it almost goes hand in hand with uh with the transition that's why i think kicking is because there's more kicking it influences the transition you know landscape and what happens is uh this is sort of your kicking accuracy is going to play an important part yeah so when they do show stats they they just show that um one team kicked 28 kicks and that team kicked 34 but they don't talk about the accuracy part of it and that's where there is you know a gap of instability in defense and like you rightly mentioned yes it's it is slightly too far from a lens this point of view because they would like to obviously get a rack formed because rack allows you to form your defense and what do you think of jalibert's decision here so riasi offloads the ball to him under a lot of pressure so like you said it's a great bit of recruitment because ryan's only been at ubb this year so he's slotted and he's playing in a champions cup final he was playing in the bottom of the league team last year yeah and then jalibert decides to beat a defender beat a couple of defenders and go into contact what do you think of that decision yeah so so what what we obviously look at in terms of from a transition lens anyway, we look at behaviors. And that is a perfect behavior. Because if you just, you know, take off layers from, and World Rugby will love this, because if you take off layers in what rugby originally was, the main idea of attacking rugby is go forward, right? And that's exactly what Jelly Bear did.

And I think their principles surround a lot of, a lot of their behaviors have got that um that intention and that's that's exactly what you would want from a coach you get the book and let's go forward and obviously from then there's going to be spatial opportunities that that arrive from that absolutely that's one of my i watch a lot of ubb and my favorite thing about them is they just go forwards so it's amazing how many teams just don't yeah and it's better to go forward especially when the defense is is unstable right that that makes it almost so much more easier because then what you do is you force the the structured part of it to force them to be scrambled because then forwards are next to backs and that then starts opening up um you know a different can of worms moving on then to clip number two so this is kind of a uh an unforced transition would you say so this is a kick from uh ubb where oh no sorry ubb had just been going through phase play and josh van der fleer has tried to go in and turn it over and in the process of doing that he's knocked down we're going to see a slow-mo replay of it in a second i think yeah and and i think it's it's a good example of just showing you that um it's these are opportunities that you can have if leinster were able to recover that situation and they could have got themselves an easier exit than having to go to a scrum and a knock on if that if that makes sense so there's we're talking about moments there's a missed moment to to get a clear exit okay do you want to talk us through like the full process of what happened here okay so a contestable kick which has become very important um you know through all competitions again this is an area that we spoke about skills earlier on these are top skills that aerial skills that have become gold. And it's almost a set piece when it comes to rugby now, isn't it? Because you know you're going to have a number of them. Most teams are averaging about 24 receipts of contestables. So it's definitely a part of an area.

And if you can't secure that, that then becomes a transition opportunity for the team that's not able to recover. Yeah. And do you think the players, the Leinster players would have known that? I mean, obviously they've given away a scrum to UBB in their own half. which is a bad thing anyway, but do you think they've gone, it's doubly worse because it was like, we had such an opportunity to do something so much better there Yeah and again it a heavy psychological element that if you cannot capitalize on those moments it also drops heads And you see in some of the other clips where a turnover has got a real emotional impact on players and you can see their heads drop because it's almost like a key turning point, as they say in rugby.

I think, but these moments, these transition moments are real turning moments because it either stops you from scoring after a couple of phases or, you know, a mistake happens and that almost deflates your team. And unless you've played in an environment like that, you know, you won't really know what that's like. So there's a heavy, heavy emotional influence on these moments. Okay, fantastic. Okay, this next one, I believe, is Leinster in possession.

I think they've just won a line-out, and they're about to go on attack. And I think from memory, this is one where Mo Afana makes a big defensive read and forces a transition. Yeah. So I think the key thing that I took from this clip, again, just the reaction. If you watch the reaction of the Bordeaux players, again, the first intention is try to go forward with the ball.

and again you see a lot of their players are all scanning at most teams you only see your nines and tens doing scanning so here you see their forwards are even scanning and that's sort of indication of a good behavioral transitional team we'll come on we'll come on to how you teach it because that's going to be so against the innate kind of the learned behavior of so many forwards as well and so we'll come on to kind of how we teach that later on yeah can i just ask something Quickly, Kennedy, remember I'm the dumbo in this conversation. If you say scanning, what does that mean? Does he take a PDF out of his pocket? Or what is he scanning? Explain that to me in layman's terms.

Okay. Yeah, well, scanning means that you are visually trying to take in information that will help you make a better decision. So there's a process in decision-making that you first have to gather the information visually, and then obviously you're processing to be able to then make a decision and from that decision then you make an execution. So the moment the wrong information is taken in visually, then you'll probably make a wrong decision. Okay, but what am I looking at?

I mean, okay, I can get a lot of – am I looking at the stands? Am I looking at the fly-off? I mean, what am I looking for? I'm a prop now. You see Carlos Sari standing there.

What is he scanning, for example? Sorry to ask a stupid question, but I want to understand this. No, no, no. That's a good question. But obviously, I won't be able to give so much IP away.

But that will be up to some of the cues that your coaching staff and sort of the game model that your team wants to play. because I could say, look at A, B, and C when your team is favoring D, C, Z, and A. So it obviously falls into your coaching system, but they are the ones who should be giving those cues because that then helps a player to obviously scan quicker, make a quicker decision, and obviously then execute because it's a three-framework process, that decision-making. Three-framework, what does that mean? Yeah.

So that means there's three steps. You scan first, you then decide, and then you execute. If one of those go wrong, then the outcome is generally not the right one. Okay. So now what you're saying is, let's say for argument's sake, Bordeaux had a plan to do this, that, and the other.

Then they would say to Carlos Sari in the meetings beforehand, when this happens, you have to look at A, B, and C. He would know what to look for then. It's not just something... That's what I'm getting at. So the bulls might look at something different than the stormers might look at something...

Yes, yes, yes. So those are cues that are given out too. Ideally, if you are coaching unstructured rugby, you want to be able to give cues because it's a framework, right? And that's the power of this transition is that this decision ultimately lies in the player. So there is a lot of ownership.

And I think when I played, I enjoyed that because I was able to have freedom, but still in a framework that I worked in. And I think that's the right way that should be. coached all right you back to you so kennedy this is now around the 30th minute of the match and i recognize this one this is a long phase of possession that leinster had down in ubb's 22 hammering away at their goal line and like i said 30 minutes on the clock and they're seven points to 21 down so i'm wondering if this is going to be one of those big emotional moments of the game yes now now you mentioned and i think the key part is that i can maybe introduce again a framework that works around. So in transition, there's going to be an emotional shift, there's going to be a spatial shift, and there's going to be a tactical shift. And those don't necessarily have to go in that order.

But when there is a transition, all three of those take place. And this one is a perfect example of what an emotional shift does. And that again, it is a turnover, it's a transition. and ideally Bordeaux don't capitalize to look to run it. They get the penalty and use it to exit.

And that has got a huge emotional effect on the Leinster team. So what this is, like I said, and what this clip doesn't show is that this is many, many phases into an attack. And it's kind of like the second stage of an attack as well because this attack started, I think, in Leinster's own half and they managed to get this close. and then they get to this moment here and it's it's just a knock on and they get the scrum and like you say from there they lose it and you can see the big celebration from jelly bear that i'm going to rewind it for a second the the both sides of the emotional side of it jelly bear here the big black shouts the big shouts also waki was there as well yes lots of communication yeah and and that's the power of of transition right so we don't see that because we we're looking at the scores, but those are moments, and these moments, you can go back in time, I mean, I'm talking in the 80s and 90s, rugby has always had moments, but I suppose if they haven't been analysed and looked like in this way, it is an important part of the game, because this shifts, it shifted a lot of emotional baggage in terms of how Leinster, you know, received this, and like you mentioned just the the the the it gave them bounce it gave them a a real um you know celebration that we defended such a great passage of play and i mean leinster did well to to build up all those phases and usually this would be a a a try or a penalty for leinster ended up in a knock-on so as a skills coach is this a is this a forced transition or an unforced transition if i'll play through again because he never really gets his hands close to that i see if i can get it through slowly jameson park passes and then i think it's uh conan at six the pass is never really close to going to his hands do you think that's a forced or an unforced transition yeah i think that's a forced one because they put pressure on on on gibson park to put an inaccurate pass and of course it wasn't gathered in so they've they've put um leinster's skill set under pressure and that's where the the the turnover transition came from so this is another example of leinster on the attack and again we've cut out the fact that there's several rocks into this attack now i think they started in their own half again and they try and spread it a bit wide maybe try and be a bit less predictable and it's a slow rock did what kind of before we go any further does a slow rock like that increase the chances of a transition do you think yeah yeah it certainly does because what happens is that allows the uh bordeaux team and defensive line to really get and win the game line i mean we spoke about the game line stats and and why they're so important and this allows you to to not allow them to get over the advantage line because the moment they get advantage line we speak about going forward then it makes it more difficult as a defensive team so the slower the ball is the quicker we can get off the off our line and that means that even if you are structured you're gonna get caught behind the the advantage line which means that you only when you have to reset you have to go back and reset so definitely bordeaux is is is winning this race and we call it almost a a a a a set race where you know both teams are set who can win the race to that uh game line well if i play it through so it goes through 10 and then there's a pullback i'll talk a bit more about leinster's attack in a bit because it you've used the word predictable and that's exactly how i would describe them and then tommy o'brien goes for this kick it's what what what do you think he was trying to do here because it goes to jelly bear like a like kind of a a backstop in a baseball or cricket or something yeah that's a bit difficult to to to say but these again are decisions that are made when it is unstructured rugby and that's why it is such an important part of the game because we we will look at a kickoff and everyone says oh the kickoff was was was great but it's these kicks and play that become so important because they give you that loose ball that uh this type of ball that was given here to Jalibe because he was able to just get territory back without them uh lifting or having to go into any uh um you know territory or or pressure they were able to just exit out of their half easily through a kick like that so yes the the unstructured kicks are as dangerous and most benefit to a team that uses them the best yeah and as you say the emotional this is 39 minutes 20 seconds on the clock three scores down you've just given the ball straight to their best player and he goes and does this hoops it down the pitch it's not quite a 50-22 it bounces just outside but it's close to being one and you can see the emotional impact on Tommy O'Brien there because he knows now they're not going to score again before half time and they're going to go in three scores down yeah so so when we speak about that that three phase the emotional the spatial and the tactical they're a kick incorrect kick um the emotions are down from the forwards from leinster um then you look at the spatial the jalibe identified that there is kick space at the back and then the tactical is about executing that kick into that area and that's sort of a transition layout that that has played itself out okay this next one slightly earlier in the first half i should say by the way all the examples that um you asked of me were all in the first half this is quite a a short one um this is a five meter line out to leinster again another big opportunity that they blow i'll just play it through because it's quite short um if they go to throw it in people might remember it and they've tried to go for something clever here or what it says a skill error i guess and you talk about the unpredictability that was weird everyone kind of stood around not knowing what just happened exactly so we spoke about and we gave an example of a line out right and and there it is because um and why why sort of you've got to look at these these are moments that um people don't understand that it is a transition yes waki does slap the ball out into touch but these are opportunities because there is such a heavy emphasis on 22 entries right and when moments like this happen uh we we we just think oh no it's a slight mistake let's let's reset but this is counting towards possession and attempts at being able to score. And in a World Cup final, this could be the decisive moment.

So it's just showing you how important turnover transition has on the game. And that's sort of what we're trying to elaborate here. Yeah, I'm definitely on a South African podcast. If it was on a Welsh podcast, we wouldn't mention World Cup finals, I can tell you that. Certainly.

So this next one. this is so this is kind of the one of the killer blows so this this is such a crazy transition and i don't i we're going to talk about how you coach i don't know how you can coach this so this is kind of the the pinball one that i want to call it well it kind of goes a bit wrong so they they play to width and then they want to come back inside and they come back inside in a moment again and it's a kick come eventually comes up from jalebo after they carried in midfield they kind of lost it lost a carry there and he gets charged down or it's a bad kick or something but just ubb just reacts to it best yeah yeah if you can pause it there so i mean the key thing the the key thing here if you're able to you know just go back to that moment i think the key thing to me that stood out here was the behavioural of both teams, because in that moment of change, of the shift, which team reacts the quickest? So it is a transition race, right? Whoever reacts the quickest and is connected within that, then it's obviously already at advantage. And because this is, people would say it is luck, but I'm saying that if it is going to win you a World Cup through a try of this nature it needs everybody to be ready for that moment i think you've seen a lot of the american movies where they say you've you've got to you've got to be ready when it's time to be ready you know you've got to stay ready and i think that's that's a mindset so mindset yeah you know if i look at where that ball bounces it's bounced closed closer to leinster demian who's the guy who touches the ball next is all the way over here but it's closer to the leinster players yes so so it again explains to you that that there is a reactional element that that can be coached there yeah and then this kind of craziness he just hoofs it he just kind of takes it and backs it backs his own skills i guess yep and it's try time the uv will be already playing of course it's try time yeah and i mean i i mean there's plenty of tries that that they've scored like that so if we if we do look at it it there is a pattern it's not just accidental that they've scored they have scored a number of tries where there is loose ball they they say listen we're going we're going to go forward and going forward it doesn't necessarily mean running with the ball forward i can also kick the ball forward you know so so they i i understand that you know we need to go forward in any which way and the moment to do it we all go so it's a mindset of a gathered Mindset and I suppose that's why there's such a good team.

I saw someone on social media described jelly bears One of jelly bears passes is speculative and I thought it's not speculative if he does it five times a game every game That the point That a good point and I think that is that is where we saying that and you know Unstructured rugby might not be as unstructured as we think there could be a lot of structure in that you know yeah this is the last one again this comes from a leinster attack so again talking about the psychology of the moments leinster have a free kick awarded to them here and they've tapped and gone and it's very deep in their own half but because of i guess the scoreboard pressure they felt the need to play and nothing's been going for them for about well over half an hour at this point but they they play and i'll let it run on because this is quite a long one but this is leinster a long way from their dna here yeah and i think you you did mention it uh during the game um that they are playing very unfamiliar rugby as you'd say but this is this is what it is is that um the the games especially at club level have started sort of saying that whoever can win the chaos battle is from most likely going to win the game and that's what um you know bordeaux have forced leinster to sort of play in that way and that sort of suits bordeaux right down to a tee because yes they there may be a good unstructured team in a in attack but they're also very good unstructured team in in defense as well and i think that's where the pressure was felt here by leinster i think this that's that just moment just there is a great example of ubb's willingness to just invite the chaos because this long pass you can see robbie henshaw i think it is it might be um burn has a good long think about what he wants to do here yeah and then jali bear just puts a hand on it just like yeah let's have some chaos because the the clocks in the red a scrum here to ubb is fine yeah so again it is that mindset of that um you know we we we want the ball and i think they they've got a a ball first defensive type mindset and that's what they're looking for they're just looking for the in any which way and i think that uh this this this sequence has it says a lot about what the game is and i think that's that's sort of what i i took out from the sequence because it it had bits and pieces of what leinstar really are good at in in in building phases and and being able to to stretch you through structure but they almost fell into the unstructured trap of bordeaux yeah I love this moment from LBB here in the red scrum cap. You talk about scanning. He realizes the situation is in. Watch him drop back now, pointing and dropping back and pointing again because he anticipates what's about to happen. Yeah.

A really good observation there because what happens is he understands the threat of that backspace through kicks because he scored so many tries through that. And I think that was a great piece of agile defending. And if you're comfortable in unstructured play, you will do that because you understand the threats of covering different spatial areas. And then this is the other killer moments. Moa Farner just goes for the big reads and it's try time.

And that's the cup. That's the last try they scored in the game. Yeah. And that's why the highlight package ended up from here. But I think those moments sort of illustrate the importance of transition because we've just basically looked at all these clips and it's put almost, you know, what, 31 points on the board or whatever it is.

And that was game said and done because there was just two penalty kicks in the second half and they maintained the game. So they switched it in the second half where they didn't have to play elaborate and play off all transitions. They sort of, you know, slowed it down and became a contestable kicking game. that way they manage the score and you know the one the game okay so we talked about leinster being maybe a bit predictable so this is offers a sort of a transition it's again a kick like we talked about earlier that goes a bit too long and this is a little bit of a long clip so i'm gonna uh let it play on but this is about structure and how leinster are always so desperate for structure so i'm going to say something that when i realized it i couldn't unsee it again i'm interested to get your guys thoughts especially yours can be about everything's in threes with leinster everything is in threes so they go they got the um three forwards here or maybe it's these three with the guy behind and this is a shape that you're going to see so many times um with leinster as this clip plays on got this again here this three goes together and the guy behind and then it plays on and then the rock happens and then they get the structure again and then look three there and the guy behind and then there's three there and they go they go wide this time again and it's just so we talk about predictable rico yanni tries to put in a bit of unpredictability here but then they go that way can you see the three again there as well just leinster it's just the same structure there's the three again with the guy out behind every single time and do you think that uvb would have found that really easy to defend against yeah i think um you know these uh what's funny is that um i was watching this game with somebody and they they don't know much about rugby they they they you know they just watch it at at times and leisure and they mentioned to me when we're watching this and obviously bordeaux was scoring their tries and they've ended up now understanding transition because you're standing you're sitting next to somebody who will watch a game and you know other people are watching excellent tries i'm watching you know 30 transitions here in a game you know so they said to me something that was quite um you know astounding they watched this this sequence actually and they said to me it's very interesting how leinster when they play they always have to stand in this formation right they don't know what what an attacking shape is and now that you also mention it then it it stands up because every time you you look at bordeaux it's shapeless because they're looking for space and their ultimate goal is to go forward whether it is through you around you or behind you okay thank you for all those clips uh so i'm very interested as a bull supporter and seeing that you're wearing a bulls tracksuit and everything else you know how much of an advantage does a bull have with you know this kind of a thing in in the in the arsenal i suppose in the in the quiver and um like you've been asking you griffin has been asking repeatedly now how do do you coach it or can you not tell us maybe yeah well i i definitely can't let that ip out it's it's heavily in the vault and all i can say is that there's a lot of drills there's a lot of um you know ip and understanding of what what it is but it's it is it is at that stage where we we're still slowly you know just trying to get mindsets shifted first that's why i think the first shift is a mindset a mind shift um in terms of just getting because it's it is it is something that's unfamiliar um but it is it i think the the the evidence is is there and it's it's every weekend you can go and watch games from anywhere from school rugby to to six nations to super rugby it is evident it's just a matter of um you know we want more coaches embracing it and and that way we can we can we can have our players um be better prepared well we spoke about the the change and you know change management is a is something that i hear in my professional life a lot but there must be a lot of unlearning you must get a lot of players and things who are just like this is completely the opposite of everything that i've spent my whole life working on so there must be a long process of trying to get players to change the habit of a lifetime yeah and i think that's that's probably the key word that that that that i'm gonna have to add into this whole um you know journey of mine is there is going to be a lot of unlearning i mean we we've already got um you know words and abbreviations that are explaining you know the the the principles around uh this this framework we've got words like uh try equivalence um i don't know if you guys have i've heard that uh word being used around yes i've heard it i've heard it once it's it's kind of if i remember rightly it was a couple of years ago it was something like normally if you have this many line breaks this many defenders beating this many meters normally that would equal a try that kind of a thing it's sort of but in in the transition world it basically means uh you sort of an action that quantifies um and leads to a try so we're talking about like line breaks or floats and um you know intercepts so those are actions uh that are are part of this framework so the the the i think they say if you if you want to introduce a like a coaching philosophy if the language starts developing from it and you start beginning into a good space. So, tri-equivalence is one of them.

We spoke about attacking ratio as one of the key stats that's really, really important in the transition world. So, yeah, it is a project and a journey that is starting to get its own formation. And I think it's exciting times because let's be fair, when you do look at at teams that get it right, it is hell of entertaining. I mean, you can see how Bordeaux and Toulouse and that's why, you know, their stands are full, you know, because you play that type of rugby, you're going to get it right. We're talking about a lot of fancy things now.

I don't mean in any derogatory way or anything. This is next level stuff, honestly. But like you said, there's also a lot of unlearning. But I also think there's a lot of learning to do because you can't build a skyscraper without a proper foundation. yeah and a question that comes up a lot is the basic stuff like catching a ball passing it properly not above the guy's head not at his feet and when it comes to you catching it when you take a ball from the liner don't put it into your scrum off hands for example those basic stuff that have to be in place in the first place that seems to be a bit of a problem everywhere i suppose yeah is that something that you work on as well is that part of transition or is that something that needs to be in place and also almost as a given yeah you're right it's very important the the catch and catch and you know framework is very important within rugby and those are part of your fundamental skills so there's there's a set of skills that we would say that a player would need to have to just walk onto the field before they've got any structure before they they they coached on anything they have to be able to do those your your catch and pass is certainly one of them.

Your tackle tech is one of them. Your contact skills is one of them. So yeah, very, very important. And obviously your decision-making is vital as well. So if you're able to get those components, that helps you when it comes to the transition part of it, because there's what we call rugby skills, and then there's transitional rugby skills that work.

And I mean, you can see some of those touches that the Bordeaux side have done. And that's encouraged if you've got your fundamentals that's why i said peace fundamentals as you mentioned and then leads to this but before that the foundation is going to be laid through our mindset you know and um yeah that's something if i have to just mention is that the gold state golden state warriors um as uh psychologists when we're talking he sort of said that when i was telling him about this venture, he said to me, no, there's a coach called Bill Walsh, who introduced a different philosophy in American football, which is called the West Coast Offense, right? And a lot of the things I told him, he says they're directly in that book. He made a lot of resistance. There was a lot of unlearning.

There had to be some foundational, you know, things put into place and and so goes forward so this is is it's it's it's it's common it's probably been done before um and it's just about introducing it in in a different uh space that's all well and there all i've learned today is that the fears your worst fears were confirmed that coach hackers is turning the balls into a basketball team it's it's it's no more scrums and balls for the balls anymore it's all offloading from their own half that's all they care about no no no it was actually funny kennedy when i was there the week at the bulls they were actually talking about offloads do you remember that incident yes in the room where that's right on the whiteboard they actually teach it like theory like in a classroom it was so interesting and then after that i watched them and said yeah you didn't follow rule number one because it was number one there you go right no and there and that's the beauty about it doing it in in a fundamental mental way like that because the lessons are great because you can then say hey look did you follow through our principles so yeah it's the best form of learning and I think there's freedom in that for the players and that's the nice thing about it so how's the community around the Bulls going with this then Kennedy are they all accepting it or are they all teasing you about your crazy new ideas no so obviously I've presented it to to our local coaches or obviously also introduced it to some of schools i'm glad that those schools are are doing well but it has it has been um accepted well because it is it is it's clear to see it's not it's nothing um you know they took it took it on board um and i think the the case study uh would be real important because that's sort of um my contribution uh to world to world rugby uh so that um you know there can be you know more talks from other coaches and from you know guys like you we i just want the chat around it to just be more more impactful and that way that affects you know the the next generation of rugby players that are coming i hopefully that the south africans are are are real good transition players because we've got the rest of the package if we can uh you know merge those two then i think we'll be unbeatable the the actions that have gone past and some of the talks it is it is very informative that okay well thank you so much kennedy i've i cannot wait to watch this one back to to revise for the tests that i assume you're going to set me via whatsapp later uh but i've i've learned absolutely tons of eyes i hope all of our listeners have so yeah just appreciate your time and look forward to hopefully talking to you again about the balls maybe about zimbabwe at some point as well yeah it's just great and i think it's always good to to be able to share um you know some of the knowledge in for the game uh you griffin just slipped something in there by the way about zimbabwe we're definitely going to be talking to you about zimbabwe because zimbabwe is playing saa in the same day as primos playing the barbarians so we're going to be talking about the zimbabwe team specifically because we'll be keeping a very very close eye on them he was a closet fan there as well we've spoken to coach bernardi as well and the captain so yeah looking forward to that thank you kennedy thank you for making time for us. I know it's a hectic week, it's playoff week, lots of hard work to be done, but you've made time for us and we appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. This is the Loose Pass Rugby podcast only on Megaphone Rugby.

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