For teams who go into matches as underdogs, who are outgunned in attack and / or defence, they must look to their strengths and find a way of upsetting or frustrating the opposition. On the weekend I was fortunate enough to see two teams who on paper and on current form can be considered the underdogs.
Police Sports Club faced the ferocious defence of Havelock Sports Club under lights on Friday evening while in the bright sunshine of Saturday afternoon Ceylonese Rugby and Football Club took on the attacking might of Kandy Sports Club. Both teams on paper looked like they were in for a hard day at the office and yet both teams came close to causing an upset and may have come away with the victory.
Planning and preparation is a major contributing factor if an underdog is to beat a more fancied opponent in Rugby and it is often the reason why teams dominate in the first place. In the planning one must obviously look first at how to enhance their own strengths while minimizing the opposition’s but also if a coach looks deeper maybe another advantage can be found?
To find a hidden advantage one should start with known facts and statistics. Police have not beaten a top three team and have underachieved all season, meaning that Havelock SC could mentally believe they should win this game. Also Police have the consistently reliable goal kicking boot of Rajitha Sansony. He is probably their best option for collecting points. Havelock SC play Rugby for the full 80 minutes, playing a high pressure, pressing defence, they also have the league’s top points scorer in Dulaj Perera but they have the added pressure of needing a bonus point.
A Police game plan might be based on trying to nullify the predatory defence and being disciplined so they do not give away penalties so as to limit the damage Perera can inflict, have a strong kick / chase game, play for territory and let Sansoni collect points when he can. The longer the Police could hold the Havelock team, the greater the pressure to score tries to collect the important bonus point would become. They could also use the possible mental complacency of Havelock SC to start the game with high intensity and launch something like a surprise attack right from the first whistle. That is a possible game plan that would need to be trained for during the two weeks prior to the game.
What certainties could be taken into the game where CR and FC hosted the team from Kandy? We know Kandy have lost two games from three visits to Colombo and that they are a point behind Navy SC and five points behind Havelock SC at the time of kick off. They have a superstar team that has justifiably high expectations with a backline that can be more dazzling than a blue star sapphire.
Therefore it could be presumed that Kandy will be under pressure to perform so the question is how can we amplify that pressure and also limit the time and space for the Kandy backs to shine. Before we talk about time and space for outside backs let us first look at where they are to get their possession from. Set-piece, turn over ball, kick reception and quick penalties are the obvious areas we can target. As a team we must identify these areas as key to winning the match. Kandy only used one jumper in the line out so that is where we can disrupt supply. Whenever we kick we must always find touch and put in a great chase to limit the opportunities for a quick throw in. Stay disciplined in attack, and do the basics well, to retain possession and limit the turn overs conceded.
Unfortunately the supply lines to Danushka Ranjan and his cohorts remained open for most of the first half and this was when they did most of their damage. The Kandy line out was able to function as normal, kicks for touch were returned with interest and possession lost too regularly to create any real pressure while the game was in the balance in the first half.
Havelock Sports Club, Navy Sports Club and Kandy Sports Club are all beatable. You just need a well thought out game plan, be prepared to carry out said game plan and then believe. Any team can beat anyone with meticulous planning and preparation, just ask the Irish Rugby team that played the All Blacks in Chicago, Illinois, USA. They had never beaten the All Blacks but that was used as a motivation and not as a glass ceiling.
