Culture is a word that gets tossed about far too flippantly in rugby.
In a slick marketing campaign that rippled out of New Zealand a few years ago, the Kiwis attempted to transform the perception that their players were a bunch of wild tribesmen who would devour a haunch of raw venison before a Test match into the family-friendly concept that “better people make better All Blacks”.
Videos of the great Richie McCaw sweeping up the detritus of the Kiwis’ changing room after an away Test match were accidentally (on purpose) leaked to the universe.
Aawwh ... Aren’t those Kiwis just sooo wonderful? (Love heart emoji.)
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This inspired hundreds of teams across the globe to pick up their brooms and clean up their own mess after a match. Somehow, they believed that cleaning their changing room was the definition of a positive team culture.
I am pretty sure that in the lead-up to winning the 2015 Rugby World Cup, the New Zealand coach Steve Hansen did not say, “Right boys, the key to our game plan is we’re going to sweep up the changing room after the match.”
The noble gesture of sweeping the world’s changing rooms did have one positive outcome. It made the real cleaner’s job much easier.
Give me a group of obsessive, competitive players who stamp mud from their boots on to the changing room floor, then rip the tape from their ankles, roll it up into a ball and throw it at their team-mate on the other side of the room, but detest defeat so much that they are willing to sacrifice almost anything to win. They are the type of players who can build a powerful team culture.
Culture can be simply defined as the way we do things around here. Team culture is about establishing and maintaining behaviours that drive winning performances.
From the chairman to the head coach, the staff and every player, behaviours that drive success have to be established, agreed upon and lived by every member of the organisation.
Perhaps the key element inside winning cultures is the ability to develop a growth mindset. The concept that every day requires the willingness to grow and change in order to improve.
Bill Belichick, the multiple Super Bowl-winning coach of the New England Patriots, distilled the essence of winning cultural behaviours into three words: “Do your job.”
Usually rugby players are not the personality types that solve problems by sitting in a circle while holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Direct, honest and open communication is a key behaviour in all successful teams. Communication that is brave enough to identify the problem and so motivated to succeed that players and staff are prepared to start the process of change in order to solve the problem.
To achieve this, egos have to be put aside. When communication becomes real and the good of the team is placed above the individual’s ego, then relationships within the team begin to develop a deep mutual trust. One of the main reasons former team-mates remain great friends across their lifetime is the trust in their relationship that they developed through the honesty of their playing days.
If Leinster are to win the URC or the Champions Cup, they need to have some deeply honest and open discussions about the frailties of their defensive system because defence wins championships.
[ The Jacques Nienaber conundrum: What’s going on with Leinster’s defence?Opens in new window ]
Coaches must drop their ego and admit that, currently, their defensive system has a big flaw. Without significant adjustments, one aspect of Leinster’s defensive set-up will not cope against the top-quality teams they could face in May.
There are three main scenarios that defensive systems have to deal with. The first two are when the number of attacking players and defenders are equal. The second is when there are more defenders than attackers. Leinster’s system is coping with both of these scenarios.
When Leinster’s rushing defence is faced with more attackers than defenders, then the system is deeply vulnerable to failure. Last weekend, when La Rochelle had superior attacking numbers, it was their inability to quickly transfer the ball to the flanks, where Leinster are leaving huge tracks of space, that cost them the game.
Leinster’s defensive problem is especially exposed when the attacking possession comes from a midfield ruck and Leinster are forced to split their defending numbers on both sides of the ruck.
La Rochelle had that exact scenario on multiple occasions. They had attacking overlaps, but their centres did not possess the silky passing skills to exploit the large areas of space that Leinster’s rushing defensive system leaves out wide when it is faced with superior numbers.
What should deeply worry Leinster is that Toulouse, Bordeaux, Bath and Northampton all have players with exceptional catching and passing skills that can exploit these spaces.
Leinster’s rushing defensive system discards the best two defenders on the field. In 125 years of rugby, the sidelines have never missed a tackle.
Sliding defence is a system designed for the situation when there are more attackers than defenders. Sliding defence forces attackers towards the sidelines, which makes it a more effective system against overlaps. It is also the system that Leinster have used in that scenario for more than 25 years. Top-quality teams should have both a rushing and a sliding system in their quiver of defensive weapons to use when required.
As it stands, when the attack has superior numbers, Leinster’s “up and in” rushing defence system is highly vulnerable against slick passing teams, or players such as Antoine Dupont who possess a deadly accurate short kicking game.
After their match review, La Rochelle must have been in disbelief at the multiple opportunities they failed to exploit.
Having closely watched Leinster for more than two decades, I believe that Leo Cullen has developed a culture within his team that is honest and open to solving problems. Leinster’s unprecedented ability to reach the playoffs in both competitions does not happen without a powerful culture that drives positive behaviours.
The ability to change and grow is an organisation’s most powerful cultural tool. Leinster must acknowledge their significant defensive vulnerability when faced with superior attacking numbers, and then address the problem by incorporating sliding defence into their game plan. Leinster have the quality to win the Champions Cup, but not with the current flaw inside their defensive playbook.
