It was a 7 on 4 with a lot of offload runners. Yes he should have done better but it looked like he was looking back in to try and defend any crash ball lines
Can’t find the clip other than the full match on sky but the back angle shows it best. It’s 3 vs 3 by the time it is in siones channel. Sione has the 3rd last man running the coach ball covered. This Argentine player with the ball has no boot runner in behind that freeman needs to cover. Freeman bites in and comes onto Siones man. This leaves his man unmaked and leads to the try. Not a system error just a simple 3 v3 poorly executed
Agreed on the error. Of course, most others made errors too.
I think it's pretty poor that some are being targeted, while others aren't (not that you're targeting Freeman here. You're quite correct to identify he made that mistake).
Would like to see both Freeman, and Van Der Merwe getting a shot off a more structured platform. Genge aside, last night the vast majority of the Lions were pretty off the mark.
The Back Row especially seemed to be out of sync, and it caused considerable net negative impact from the brekadown onwards and thereafter on the Lions shape across that Backline, which then impacted on Freeman, Duhan, Smith, etc.
There’s definitely something in that back row observation - and I think that’s a tactical decision coming from the coaches.
Morgan, Earl, and Curry getting the ball out on the wings a lot, especially in the first half. Pollock’s turnover to end the game… he was out wide.
And that’s fine because often back-rowers thrive in those spots. Got to question whether the back row are able to do their jobs properly if they’re essentially acting as outside backs for much of the game.
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u/mhaze0791 Northampton Saints Jun 21 '25
It was a 7 on 4 with a lot of offload runners. Yes he should have done better but it looked like he was looking back in to try and defend any crash ball lines