Alan Massie: Patient probing a dangerous game if rivals don’t flinch

“PATIENCE” is a favourite word of coaches and commentators. A rugby team should be content to go through the phases until a gap appears in the opposition defence.

Football teams should also play the possession game. In cricket bowlers should not seek to produce the “magic ball”, but should bowl line and length (preferably in Geoffrey Boycott’s “corridor of uncertainty”) until the batsman makes a mistake. Tennis players should be in no hurry to hit a winner but should carefully construct a point until the moment of opportunity arises.

No doubt this is usually good advice. Patience is indeed a virtue, and in rugby, very often if you hold on to the ball long enough, you will be rewarded. Fair enough, but there are two sides playing the patience game, and the reward may arrive only if the opposition’s patience snaps first. Sometimes indeed you can have too much possession. Watching the Champions League semi-finals between Barcelona and Chelsea in which Messi & Co more or less monopolised possession, one wondered if they might have done better to let Chelsea have more of the ball in the hope that this would lure them out of their defensive laager.

Likewise, throughout the second half in Newcastle on Tuesday, Australia showed exemplary patience as they battered away in the Scotland 22. Too much patience perhaps, and because they were obedient to the theory that if you keep possession, the gaps will appear and the try will come, they didn’t vary their tactics. One couldn’t help thinking that if they had had a Dan Carter or Ronan O’Gara at fly-half, they would have found some way to score a try, probably by putting the ball behind the Scottish defence. Instead they remained patient in the hope that eventually a Scot would fail to make an important tackle.

In this year’s Six Nations, the Scottish team enjoyed long periods of possession and made more off-loads than any other side. This was presented as evidence that we were moving in the right direction, and to some extent this opinion was reasonable. Yet, looked at from another point of view, the number of off-loads made was evidence of failure. It meant that we were doing the same thing over and over again without getting the result that was aimed at. In contrast, teams that made fewer off-loads scored more tries, because at some point they were able to penetrate the opposing defence... It is clearly better to score a try after three passes than to fail to score one after passing the ball twenty times. None of this means that patience isn’t often desirable, even necessary; only that it isn’t enough.

There are times in rugby when you may be better without the ball. That was probably the case with Scotland in the second half at Newcastle. If we had made more turnovers deep in our 22 we might have made the kind of mistake – a misdirected pass, knock-on or charged-down kick – that concedes a try. Conversely Australia might have done better to let Scotland have a bit more ball. There was a time about ten years ago when Clive Woodward’s England side seemed happy to let the opposition have the ball for the first ten minutes or so of a game – just to show them they couldn’t do anything with it.

This probably wouldn’t be wise tactics for Ross Ford’s team to adopt against Fiji and Samoa. Teams that like running and handling, as they do, are better starved of the ball. That said, Scotland may be wise to think in terms of position as much as possession, in order to try to squeeze the exuberance out of their opponents. Both matches will be very hard, and, surely, utterly different from the one in Newcastle. Nevertheless one must hope that victory there will set the tone for the rest of the tour. Certainly breaking the run of defeats stretching back to the autumn should do much for the players’ confidence.

Meanwhile this is a summer full of international rugby. It would be good to think that Ireland might at last beat New Zealand, something which, like us, they have never managed in more than a century of rugby, but I can’t alas see it happening. Wales have a better chance against Australia as do England against South Africa. Stuart Lancaster’s team made real progress in the Six Nations which they ended by crushing Ireland at Twickenham. Their progress secured Lancaster his job, after having been appointed only as interim coach. The English media and public not themselves being given to patience, a 3-0 defeat in South Africa would see his appointment being already questioned.