Skip, Draw, Cut

Starting position

Fifteen-a-side scrum, and a strike play that comes down to three actions. The 9 clears the ball and skips the fly-half: no 10 in the chain, the ball goes straight to the 12. That is what makes it work — the defence has set its line for a first centre served by the 10, and the ball arrives one beat earlier and one man further out. The 12 takes it going forward, fixes his man and feeds the 13. The 13 straightens — he does not drift, he runs at the shoulder — and while he holds his defender, the 15 arrives. He is the cutting edge of the play: coming from the back, he enters the gap at full speed, on an angle nobody saw coming because he was not in the line to start with. He goes through and there is nothing left in front of him. Forty-seven metres later he touches down in the corner; the opposition fullback chases and arrives two metres short. Skip, draw, cut: three beats, and the defence never gets one chance to reset.