RWC 2015 - Brian Ashton: If Europe are to compete, we need to adopt the helter-skelter style of the southerners

COLUMN: We need people from one to 15 who know that speed of ball is everything

(2015 Getty Images)

There’s no doubt about it: this World Cup is a gift that keeps on giving – a tournament that continues to produce great spectacles. Sadly, there is a downside to all this from the northern hemisphere perspective and it goes by the name of the semi-final draw. The quarters encapsulated all that is best and most dramatic in top-level union but, for all the blood, sweat and tears shed by Wales and Scotland as they battled to the last, the competition is now exclusively a southern affair.

I hope and pray that those people most intimately involved with the sport in these parts understand that there is serious food for thought here and recognise that it may be time to broaden horizons in respect of how we approach the game in the international arena. Without that recognition, I fear we’ll continue to play second fiddle to the All Blacks and those currently challenging their supremacy.

In my estimation, we have now been treated on three occasions to what I referred to in this column a couple of weeks ago as Super Vuca Rugby – a style that is Vibrant, Unreal, Crazy and Astounding. We are talking here of rugby that rattles and disorientates opponents – that is capable of unstitching some of the most advanced defensive systems the sport has ever seen. Example No 1: Japan v South Africa. Examples 2 and 3: New Zealand v France in the second quarter-final and Argentina v Ireland in the third.

Japan’s spectacular achievement in catching the Springboks completely unawares and forcing them on to the back foot for long periods of that famous game in Brighton has been the subject of much discussion for weeks now. The fresh development was Argentina’s own version of paradigm-shift rugby, which took almost as many people by surprise (albeit with slightly less reason, given the adventure in their game over recent seasons). The most surprised people of all were probably the Irish defenders, who simply did not know what hit them.

How did the shift originate? Exposure to the southern hemisphere’s elite Rugby Championship has certainly been a factor. There has been a realisation down Buenos Aires way that the heavy-duty, collision-based game traditionally associated with the Pumas no longer pays dividends against the sport’s big three – New Zealand, Australia, South Africa – and regular matches against those sides has reinforced that view.

Equally, the consultancy work done in the country by Graham Henry, the World Cup-winning All Blacks coach, influenced some of the key decision-makers in Puma circles and encouraged them to explore non-traditional ways of preparing for, and playing, Test rugby against the strongest opposition. When I made a coaching visit to Argentina in March, it was immediately obvious there was a genuine eagerness to think outside the box. The outcome of that thinking is the reality we saw in Cardiff last weekend, when a proactive Argentina side played with such courage and ambition.

It was the All Blacks, of course, who pioneered Super Vuca rugby, so I was not surprised by the high-tempo performance they delivered against France, even though there were elements of abandon in their game that must have seemed almost reckless to those familiar with a slower, more structured style. Yet they remain completely grounded. As Steve Hansen, their coach, and Richie McCaw, their captain, pointed out at the Millennium Stadium, they only thing they achieved against the French was the right to stay here another week.

To my way of thinking, the starting point for this kind of rugby – simple yet immensely challenging – is the mindset. It has its origins in what I call a 360-degree view of the sport: a multidimensional approach that has at its heart a highly developed form of game awareness. It requires players who actively search for attacking opportunities and then execute with precision. It demands mental courage and toughness: the ability to embrace the tiniest margins for error in the search for sensational rewards.

Tag on to this the physical capacity necessary to cope with long, lung-bursting periods of ferocious running: stretches of rugby in which the ball is in play for three minutes or more. I suspect that this was the centrepiece of the All Blacks’ strategy against France. The first scrum was in the 33rd minute. Way to go, New Zealand!

They knew the set piece was a comfort blanket for the French, so they denied them access to it by creating a hostile, disruptive environment – by inflicting on Les Bleus a continuous running assault, both with and without the ball, and keeping breaks to a bare minimum. There was no hiding place for France out there – or for the All Blacks either. Only one side was truly at home in that maelstrom of non-stop movement.

Of course, mindset cannot triumph on its own. Players need a skill set relevant to wild, helter-skelter rugby, and that being the case, we can safely say that carefully structured “clean” coaching environments are yesterday’s news. Coaching chaos is the new order. We need people from one to 15 who can operate at pace and understand that speed of ball is everything. This may involve all and sundry popping up at scrum-half and providing the linking pass; it may require someone other than the outside-half or the inside centre to perform the first and second receiver roles in broken play; it may demand of tight forwards the ability to handle the pressure of performing in the exposed wider channels.

In my experience, young players love this vision of rugby: it interests and excites them; it engages all their creative and inventive capabilities by giving them the flexibility to explore. Just as the post-match comments of Hansen and McCaw were revealing, so was the pre-match chat of the ex-Puma captain Agustin Pichot before the Ireland game. Gus was one of the world’s top scrum-halves and is now a big hitter in rugby politics. His message from on high to his countrymen? “Go out there, play and enjoy.” It seems they were listening.

Brian Ashton is a former England head coach who guided the team to the 2007 World Cup final.