Given one of Skivington’s main objectives when taking over at Kingsholm was making Gloucester a feared pack again, he seems to already be succeeding. The fact that Skivington and Steve Borthwick, the Leicester Tigers head coach, are experienced former locks now running the two packs who have scored the most maul tries in the Premiership this season hardly seems a coincidence.
The maul has become such a threat that, according to Kidney, the key to limiting the damage is good discipline not just defending the maul, but beforehand in the middle of the field.
“The trick is not to give the opposition that field position from five yards out,” Kidney explains. “The damage is really being done around the 10-metre line. If you concede a penalty there you know it is going to nudge into the corner and the maul follows. You have to think one step back to see what is happening with those penalties
“We have a pretty good record discipline-wise, but there are always going to be one or two [penalties] in a game and you have to get your defensive maul right, whether in the air jumping against them and hoping to put pressure on the lifter or jumper, or whether you stay on the ground and just maul it out.
“That’s the game within the game, that whole maul area, much like the scrum. That’s the good thing about rugby – I often think it’s the decathlon of team sports because of the different disciplines. The maul at the moment is drawing a lot of attention.”
Creevy, having a fine season, might be the benefactor but as Kidney notes, any success in that area comes down to collective effort.
Kidney explains: “We have a good bit of experience around it with Sean (O’Brien), Adam (Coleman), Rob (Simmons), but that’s the reason we brought them in, to share that experience with the younger guys and show them how that togetherness is the thing that wins you mauls, it’s not the individual stuff. The same with scrummaging. You have to do them as an eight.”
Unless sides find a way to stop it, the maul will remain dominant. Skivington concludes: “It epitomises rugby at its best.”
