The worst fear of any budding journalist is to appear a fool in a press room amongst seasoned professionals. When you step up, posing a question to a player or coach, the last thing you want is a response that implies your question was ill-considered.
This fear became a stark reality for one reporter after Ireland’s latest triumph over Wales. While discussing the upcoming face-off with England, Irish coach Andy Farrell expressed confidence that his team would successfully tackle their novel blitz defence. He highlighted that his athletes have faced it before and added, humorously, that they are currently trained by the originator of this strategy.
This originator turned out to be Jacques Nienaber, the brain behind South Africa’s blitz system and current coach of the Irish team members who play for Leinster. The journalist, making the connection, asked Farrell if Nienaber was who he was referring to. A defensive response followed, inviting laughter from the experienced reporters at the event.
Despite the embarrassment, Farrell’s comments spark an interesting debate: while many have utilised the blitz – a defensive technique known for both its high-risk and high-reward nature – who truly invented it?
Just a week prior in his column, Gerry Thornley speculated that Farrell might be staking a claim to the title, considering his background in defensive coaching. Farrell, who has previously worked with England, the Lions, and Irish teams as a defence coach, encourages his athletes to aggressively stifle opponents with speed and athleticism. This approach was clearly observed during the 2013 Lions Tour, where Farrell worked as a defence coach under Warren Gatland.
In a recent podcast, Sam Warburton, the captain of the Lions team that year, shared, “Faz wanted our line speed to be so aggressive that the attack couldn’t go beyond two or three passes.”
Meanwhile, in England’s camp, Felix Jones is now leading their new aggressive strategy. His links with Nienaber, established during their time in South Africa, are undeniable. Who initially developed the blitz technique or who copied it from whom remains unclear given the geographical distance between Farrell in the UK and Ireland and Nienaber in South Africa.
Nevertheless, the blitz was a well-known defensive technique in the Northern Hemisphere long before either Nienaber or Farrell emerged. Shaun Edwards’ impressive work with the aggressive system has arguably made him the most sought-after defence coach in the game.
Edwards’ relentless defensive strategy was hailed by several Welsh players as a key factor contributing to their victories while he was with Gatland’s coaching staff, acquiring three Grand Slams in 2008, 2012 and 2019. He transferred to France in 2020, taking his tactical approach to Fabien Galthié’s team. This marked the end of a long-standing partnership with Gatland, dating back to their coaching days at Wasps in the early 2000s. The trio of Edwards, Gatland, and the blitz are often mentioned together due to their victorious run during that period, which includes winning the Heineken Champions Cup in 2004. But who initially conceived this successful system?
In a recent Telegraph column, Gatland revealed that he was the one who first started to use it during his coaching tenure at Galwegians and Connacht in the 90s. He said at that time they did not have access to sophisticated video analysis, which made it easier to surprise teams with it. “These days every play is thoroughly analysed and scrutinised, but when I joined Wasps in 2002, I discussed with Shaun Edwards, our then Defence Coach, that I wanted to introduce a forceful blitz defence,” Gatland recalls.
Edwards, a former Rugby league player, while speaking to a Wasps fan site in 2006, admitted that he became interested in the tactic following Gatland’s proposal. A key difference in the rules between Rugby League and Union pushed him to further explore the potential of aggressively pushing forward while on defence. So while Gatland was the first to deploy the blitz strategy, Edwards contributed his own innovations when both were in collaboration. However, Edwards indicates that he first noticed the blitz strategy being employed by South Africa during their successful 1995 World Cup campaign.
Logic dictates that while the origins of this strategy trace back to the ‘Boks, chances are that a club operating beyond the glare of media scrutiny during the amateur era probably embraced and utilized this strategy well before South Africa.
Does the start of the blitz belong to anyone in particular or is it open to everyone’s claims? Is this point of contention truly necessary? The crux of the matter hinges on Jones and England’s capability to stifle Ireland who are setting the pace in numerous statistical areas. Farrell may try to own what he perceives as his labour, but his focus predominantly lies on the forthcoming Saturday, rather than dwelling on bygone times.