Despite what our Super 14 round-up says, I believe the real star of the Reds win over the Chiefs last weekend was none other than Ewen “Link” McKenzie.

Even the most rabid Reds supporters had thought that playing the rampaging Chiefs at home while missing a run-on back 3 and three of the teams’ top internationals was a bridge way too far. But while he surely wouldn’t have chosen it, I believe Link must’ve had a secret smile all last week in the lead up to the game for he knew that if this young team could execute his gameplan, there was almost no need for a back three at all.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6eounhi8jI[/youtube]

So what was his master strategy? Well if you’re a long term listener to RuggaMatrix, you would have heard him talk several times about the way to beat a team with an exaggerated wide playing style; of which there is no better example than the Chiefs. You starve their strengths and exploit their weaknesses.

The Chiefs strengths aren’t hard to spot; they have one of, if not the world’s best broken play back three in Sivivatu, Muliaina and Masaga, combined with a backrow that thrives on scavenging and running wide. A potent mix, if they can get the ball, especially from kick returns or turnovers where defensive lines aren’t set and there is space. This was the key to the Reds game plan; to starve the Chiefs of their favourite forms of possession.

In terms of kicking, the Reds kicked a total of 14 times, almost half of the number of times they kicked the previous week versus the Blues (27). Within those kicks, the Chiefs could made only 4 kick returns, although predictably, even these few kicks were punished by the Waikato men.

To cut off the other supply of prime Chiefs ball – turnovers – the Reds opted for an extreme form of ‘short-side’ rugby; close running through and around the ruck, where the new ruck interpretations and concentration of their forward power protected the ball. The Reds started 106 ruck/mauls vs 63 by the Chiefs, and numbers 1-9 made 67 runs for 236m vs 32 runs for 148m by the same players for the kiwis.

At the same time, the Chiefs style of keeping their forwards out wide meant that metres were easy to come by in close. As you can see in the video above, the Chiefs were quite happy to commit as few as 3 men to defend a rolling maul, so entrenched is their wide ball philosophy. This would surely not have gone unnoticed by other Super 14 coaches.

There’s another aspect to this gameplan, which is that by starving a team of what they love to do, you apply a mental pressure that eventually reaps dividends. While they started with a bang, as the Reds gameplan started to take hold, the Chiefs psyche gradually crumbled. By the end of the game they couldn’t take a trick, and the superb kick chase try by Luke Morahan was as much a testament to his speed and perserverence, as it was to Leliia Masaga’s shits with a game that hasn’t gone his way. Watch the gap that Morahan makes up and Masaga’s pathetic attempt at covering back.

In writing all this I don’t mean to diminish the execution and effort put in like players like Braid, Genia and Daley; without them, there would have been no win. However, without the ‘trust in the process’ that Link laid down, we would have seen a full 80 minutes of the point a minute rate the Chiefs had racked up in the first 15 and the inevitable cricket score. The question is, can this young Reds team repeat the effort?

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