Quote ="tvoc"The interesting part is that the centre in the above alignment was Ablett and Sinfield still took up his defensive duties on his inside and in the GF. Nothing unusual in that as that was where he defended when starting at loose, at least as I recall. He only became an edge defender (whether two or three men in) with the requested and granted full-time switch into the starting stand-off position.
That's correct now under this coach but having lessoned Sinfield's defensive duties he's also lost the the ruck defense of a traditional hooker while adding a third edge-defending half-back - creating a higher workload for the remaining central defenders to fill.
Is it any wonder when they become fatigued, fail to read and react to situations (Delaney for the Farrell try) and/or lose discipline/concede penalties (Jones-Buchanan around the 30 minute mark) and does it make the under-use of replacements sat warming the bench (Ward 57 min and Achurch 66 min) all the more puzzling to understand?'"
Three edge defenders isn't unusual, or not in cases of teams that play pivots at loose forward.
This usually meant that right side second rows had to do a bit more defending as teams would have their left 2nd row in the edge four (with wing, centre and a half) whilst right 2nd rows in the middle four, with wing ,half, centre and loose on the right edge. Lots of teams no longer play a pivot at loose of course, and so play their loose forward in the middle four with the right second row on the right edge.
