There is an adage in rugby that defence wins championships. As far as Super Rugby is concerned that adage needs to be consigned to the scrap heap or, at the very least, amended to something more like, transition attack wins championships. In Super Rugby defence is not an end - it's a means.
There were moments on Friday night in Dunedin when Force coach Michael Foley must have been pulling his remaining hair out while his team forced turnover after turnover - 23 in total - against the Highlanders and then failed to do anything with the bonus ball. To have 23 extra opportunities against the defending champions is like a gift from above. To squander them is a sin.
In fact, a yawning chasm has opened between the counterattacking ability of New Zealand sides and Australian sides in particular - a point that could not have been better illustrated than by the Highlanders' 76th minute try which denied the Force a losing bonus point. This was not a vintage Highlanders' performance by their own standards, and yet still they were able to have the composure to pounce when they needed to.
It has become the New Zealand way. In the Chiefs' maiden championship season of 2012, they called them 'click plays' and they were practiced over and over again. On kick returns, forward players were taught where to stand to give their returning runner the best chance of beating the defence, and entire defensive systems were coiled so tightly that on the first sign of a turnover they could spring into an attacking structure and capitalise on the opportunity.
The philosophy was simple: if a team scored half its tries from counter-attack, why not practice counter-attack by design rather than by chance. I once spoke to a consultant coach a few seasons ago who had asked a then-head coach how much time he spent on counter-attack. The coach informed him that his side probably did twenty minutes a week on those drills. Needless to say, that team had the lowest turnover-try ratio in the competition.
