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O'Connor slams spiral pass obsession
Wayne Smith, Rugby union editor | April 22, 2008
DUAL international Michael O'Connor believes Australian rugby is spiralling out of control.
Before O'Connor, the ARU's junior talent identification officer, is carpeted by John O'Neill - who, to be fair, has been laying on the doom and gloom himself this year - it should be stressed that the former Wallabies and Kangaroos great is talking literally, not metaphorically.
He is convinced the spiral pass is taking Australian rugby down channels it really shouldn't travel.
Although he argues there is a time and place for the spiral pass, O'Connor fears that an infatuation with it, which he says comes from mimicking New Zealand rugby and rugby league, has diverted Australian rugby away from what it once did better than anyone else, using the ball creatively in the backs.
"It's the scourge of Australian rugby," O'Connor claimed. "Everyone thinks the spiral pass is the quickest way of getting the ball into space. It's not.
"I've proven this time and again in coaching drills that simple soft passing, moving the ball crisply through the hands, is faster than using spirals where you have to catch the ball, assuming you do catch it, because a spiral is more difficult to catch, bring it into your body and reposition your hands in the correct place to throw another spiral."
That's as close to heresy as it is possible to come in the modern game. Conventional wisdom holds that spinning the ball generates more speed through the air because that makes it more aerodynamic, which in turn permits a flatter trajectory that makes it more difficult for opposing players to swoop on an intercept.
Hogwash, O'Connor maintains, having proven repeatedly, at least to his own satisfaction, that any gains made by minimising air resistance are more than offset by the time wasted in the set-up for a spiral pass.
Aside from the split seconds gained, which can make all the difference between creating an overlap or being isolated out wide and turning the ball over, O'Connor believes old-fashioned short chain passing gives the attacking side more options.
"For starters, a softer pass is more sympathetic to the catcher. If you're a hole runner, you can keep your head and eyes up and it's easier to adjust your line at the last second.
"But if it's a spiral pass coming at you, you've got no option but to watch the ball not the hole.
"What's more, a softer pass doesn't dictate the line you run and allows you to change the angle of attack, whereas a spiral pretty much forces you to run a certain line." O'Connor has long crusaded against the spiral pass. Reds coach Phil Mooney, the former Australian under-19 coach, recalls him railing against it years ago when they worked together with junior teams.
"It's a bugbear for him, no doubt about it," Mooney said.
But it was only recently, after replaying tapes of Test matches from the 1980s, particularly those involving the Ella brothers, that it struck O'Connor how far Australian rugby had moved from its fundamental strengths.
"We used to be the leaders in back play," he said. "Now we're followers, particularly of New Zealand rugby, where they just have different kinds of athletes to us out in the backs."
No-one is certain who introduced it to rugby, although Piet Visagie caused something of a sensation with his spiral passing on the controversial Springboks tour of Australia in 1971.
It reached its zenith during the just-ended decade when Steve Larkham played five-eighth for the Wallabies. More than anything else, his ability to go to the line yet still create width with spiralling, pinpoint passes to thundering outside runners dictated the way Australia played when it won the 1999 World Cup - and beyond.
But so effective was the tactic that O'Connor maintains it came to work to Australia's disadvantage because the ball constantly was spiralling past Matt Giteau, reducing arguably the Wallabies' most dangerous attacking player to the role of decoy runner.
"Tim Horan would never have put up with that but Matt didn't have the same seniority," O'Connor said.
Just what new Wallabies coach Robbie Deans will make of O'Connor's theory remains to be seen. During his time as John Mitchell's assistant coach five years ago, Deans revolutionised kick returns by using long spiral passes among the back three to transfer the ball from one side to the other.
Still, that's not the use of the spiral that O'Connor is railing against. Rather, he hates what it has done to backline attack, especially from set pieces. That's how he's spinning it, anyway.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...012430,00.html
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