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Analysis: Justifying the hype - Andrew Conway

(Photo By David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

There’s a lot of hype going around in rugby these days. A player only needs one good moment to go viral and have thousands of fans proclaiming their brilliance. Sometimes they meet the hype, more often they don’t. Most often, they were overhyped in the first place.

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In Round 2 of the Six Nations, without wishing to fall into exactly that trap of overhyping, Andrew Conway had pretty much a perfect game on the right wing. There are perhaps more things he could have done: more tries he could have scored, more assists, maybe even a conversion. But everything he did, he did extremely well – the everyday work as well as the eye-catching stuff. Without a mistake, without overdoing it, without taking anyone else’s glory. And, at the end, he got his try.

He’s been performing in a green jersey for a while now. In 20 tests, he has 19 wins (the one defeat came in a Rugby World Cup warm-up). He has ten tries from 13 starts and eight of those came in his last eleven tests.

But the game against Wales was his best yet. Let’s take a closer look.

From the start, literally
Johnny Sexton takes the kick-off and Conway chases it down. He doesn’t get the ball but he does manage to tackle Hadleigh Parkes, who has taken the ball. He then releases and immediately gets back into position on the right wing.

At 3:40, he chases another high ball and slaps it back, putting the Welsh defence under pressure. By the fourth minute, he’s putting more pressure on the outstanding Justin Tipuric as he clears.

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Around seven minutes in, he spots that Jacob Stockdale has come off his own wing to chase work and swaps to cover the space, communicating with Stockdale as he does so. It sounds simple but organisation is crucial in test-level rugby.

Josh Adams, arguably the form wing in the world right now, can’t get past Conway as he starts to break not long after. Adams scored a hat-trick last week and has ten tries in eight games but Conway is completely unfazed and gets his man.

 

With just over ten minutes of the game gone, Conway has had significantly more impact than the man in the red 14 jersey, George North, a man with 96 test caps, would manage in the full 80 minutes.

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Supporting the team
That’s an action-packed start but Conway didn’t tail off for a moment. Here, he holds his position perfectly to keep Adams and Leigh Halfpenny, aware of the danger he poses, focused closely enough on him that they can’t properly cover Tompkins’ missed tackle and Jordan Larmour uses his strength to get through and score.

 

Ten minutes later, he shows his kicking prowess, dinking a lovely grubber through and chasing it down so Halfpenny can’t collect it, making territory and gaining the position that soon leads to Ireland’s second try.

 

He demonstrated another level to his kicking game not long after, with this mighty kick, from just over his own 22m line, almost to the Welsh 22m line.

In between, he put in the type of tackle on Ken Owens that the Sheriff of Carmarthen is more used to being on the other end of. That kind of tackle is what defence coaches call “a momentum shifter”.

 

That was the first half. In between all of that, he maintained his defensive positioning, ran support lines, and generally didn’t put a foot wrong.

The second act
In the third quarter, Wales had most of the ball and mostly attacked Jacob Stockdale’s wing or the middle of the pitch. Throughout, however, Conway held his defensive position and, when the attack came near him, communicated with and reorganised the rest of the line.

Keeping focus for such a long period without the ball is difficult to do and exploiting a distracted defender out wide after a series of phases is something Wales have done successfully in the past. Conway never gives them this option.

Then, as Ireland regain possession, he once again shows what he can do.

Here, he shows his background as a full back and comfortably takes a high ball, despite the increasingly poor conditions.

 

Almost immediately afterwards, he chases another high ball and puts in a tackle on the Welsh receiver, replacement fly half Jarrod Evans.

 

Finally, after 74 minutes of doing everything right – catching, chasing, defending, kicking, running, tackling – he gets his try. It’s a pretty easy finish for a winger and Conway, unsurprisingly at this point, makes no mistake as he hands off Johnny McNicholl on the way to the line.

 

Looking good in green

There has been a long-running debate in Irish rugby about selection on past record over current form and Conway is one of those players who fans have previously clamoured for. With performances like this, it’s not hard to see why.

He, Larmour, and Stockdale aren’t being used much for distribution right now by Ireland – all three are below the average passes per carry for the tournament in their positions – but their strike running was extremely effective against Wales and the other aspects of their game are strong enough that, so far, they look to be balancing the increased attacking focus of new coach Andy Farrell with the defensive demands of former head coach, Joe Schmidt.

And that’s the final point here. Sometimes good players stand out in bad teams or on bad days. Everyone in a green jersey played well in Round 2, not just Conway and not just the back three. They might not have been outstanding individually but they all made each other better, performing to a level that allowed their teammates to play well.

Conway’s contribution was one part of that – but, in a good team that played well, he stood out as an exceptional player.

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J
Jon 6 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 9 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

36 Go to comments
A
Adrian 11 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

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