Lineout challenge for All Blacks

All Blacks forwards coach Steve Hansen puts the pack through lineout drills in Dunedin this week. Picture / Fotopress

As the lineout forms, All Black hooker Keven Mealamu twiddles the ball in his hands, his mind ready for the call his lineout leader will deliver.

The noise in the ground has to be eliminated, his concentration locked on to one of about 30 combinations the All Blacks could use in their lineouts tomorrow against the Springboks.

Each lineout is a mini-contest of fake and double-bluff, guess and second-guess, then the concerted skill of the thrower, jumper, lifters and decoy ruses to distract the opposition. The amount of movement can be perplexing.

What is wrong with a simple throw to a lifted jumper? If it were that easy all sides would do it.

"Lineouts have got nothing to do with the vertical, it is all about manipulating space and the horizontal," former All Black coach John Mitchell once explained.

"The movement is all about creating space because defensive formations at test level are very smart.

"Timing is critical. A lot of laymen think lineouts are only about the vertical, about jumping, but it is a very complex area of the game. It is also very stimulating, an area of contest, an area of opportunity."

Gone are the days when two packs lined up next to each other, barged, bumped and belted each other as a wing bowled the ball in somewhere near where the halfback thought it should go. Forwards used their opponents' shoulders as launch pads, either hand to slap the ball back and any method to gain possession.

Changes came in the early 90s when lifting was allowed. Sides the All Blacks met on their tour of South Africa in 1992 showed how effective lifting could be and how much crisper the game became.

It has also become the most complex part of the game and, as Springbok coach Jake White commented, the most valuable possession because it is a rare part of the modern game when there is some distance between the backlines.

"More tries are scored from lineouts than scrums," he said. "If you take their ball you take away their chances and if you get your ball then you create more opportunities and it has all to do with the space between the teams.

"It is sometimes more difficult to get the lineouts right than the breakdown and it is certainly more critical, because if you don't get your first-phase ball you don't get to the breakdown.

"The kind of ball you give the opposition and the kind of ball you get on your own throw is vital to the way you want to play."

Day one of their get-together this week, All Black locks Chris Jack and Ali Williams spent three hours with forwards coach Steve Hansen reviewing their lineouts from previous tests, their opposition tactics and what calls they were going to concentrate on tomorrow at Carisbrook.

Across town the Springboks were involved in similar debates with assistant coach Gert Smal and their leading lineout duo of Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha.

The tapes reviewed, the tactics sorted, the All Blacks then spent about three one-hour practical sessions perfecting the calls and drills they want for Carisbrook.

There are changes for every test. The Springboks will have studied the tapes and listened to the calls used by the All Blacks, and lineout defence is much more combative these days. At the All Blacks training, practice and repetition were key to tomorrow's performance.

Consider the permutations. As Jack pointed out, each thrower and jumper were different. Mealamu as a shorter man had a different arc to his throw while Jack could jump at a slightly different angle to Williams.

Short or full lineouts, front jump, back jump, flat throw, lob throw, front ball, middle ball or tail of the lineout ball were the core ingredients, with all sorts of variations on those themes.

"We all have our favourites," said Jack, "but as a group we all demand of each other. We have to alter what we want to help the others.

"Lineouts are a lot about trust, backing the ability of players around you.

"We struggled probably more against the Wallabies on our own ball than we did against the Boks. The Springboks attack us more in the air. They will give you a barge while the Aussies go for the ball a bit more.

"But the Boks have physically dominated each team they have played this year and that is where we have to up our game."

IF forwards are wrestling with a multitude of lineout variations, imagine the problems for tomorrow's referee, Joel Jutge.

He was accused, belatedly, by the Lions of allowing the All Blacks to use an extra man in the lineouts during that series and has a reputation for ignoring any dramas about obstruction or gaps closing and allowing a game to run.

The All Blacks may feel they will get away with a little more with Jutge in charge, rather than a more technical or pedantic official.

The Springboks will do their best to slow the test down, to go to lineouts where they feel they have an advantage with the superior height of their loose forwards.

As White suggested: "The All Blacks have been very clever in the way they use their lineout because they do not have the tallest of backrows. They have two jumpers and an interchange mix of McCaw or So'oialo but they are not specialist lineout forwards.

"I would not say they are weak, because they have been very clever in the way they use Chris Jack and Ali Williams. But they are restricted in their options."

The continued success of the Springbok lineout was no accident. It was not taken for granted, said White, and there was never going to be a lack of lineout preparation.

It was impossible for match officials to see everything so the Springboks had to be wary of everything the All Blacks would try.

They had to have a counter for every situation.

All Black lock Williams said there was an element of fortune in each test.

"The difficulty could be that they change when we do ... and some days you can change into their hands and some days you don't, and that is the luck of the draw," he said.

"Lineouts are much more complicated than they used to be. It has been for a while but people are now starting to realise all the combinations and difficulties it involves.

"It is all about looking for some space by beating your opponents on the ground first.

"It also depends on the ref, big time. We study the ref a lot because there is a lot about what you can get away with and what you can't."