Reds flyer Drew Mitchell believes carefully concocted offensive tactics will help Queensland break the Highlanders’ Super 12 defensive stranglehold on Friday night.
Mitchell Wednesday revealed Queensland’s coaching staff have pinpointed several weaknesses in their opponents’ ”hard drifting” defensive structure that has permitted just six tries in five games.
The Highlanders’ record against tries is the best in the competition with ladder leader New South Wales letting in seven tries and the Stormers (eight) the next best.
Their defensive prowess was showcased for all to see during round three when they held the Bulls scoreless.
The last time a side failed to score a point in a Super 12 match was during the 2000 season when the Brumbies beat the Cats 64-0.
Mitchell said the Reds had studied plenty of footage of the Highlanders’ defensive pattern that has allowed them to move to within a whisker of the top four.
The Otago-based team is currently in fifth position but has the same number of points as the fourth-placed Crusaders and has played one more game.
”They’ve got a pretty different style defensive structure than other teams we’ve played,” Mitchell said. ”They’re quite a hard drifting team and they’ve obviously implemented that pattern and it’s working for them.”
”Their defence is definitely something that we’ve looked at, but we’ve come up with a few things that we think might work against them and hopefully they’ll come off when we put them into practice.” Mitchell also rated reducing the number of Reds’ first phase turnovers as crucial to his side’s chances, particularly with skipper Elton Flatley set to miss his second successive game due to a head knock.
”In our first four games we averaged 18 to 20 first phase turnovers and a lot of that has to do with us in the backline,” he said. ”By no means is that satisfactory in this level of competition.”
”If you give 20 turnovers to a team in the first phase alone, at this level, then you’re going to get punished and we certainly have over the first four weeks,” Flatley adds. Queensland broke through for its first win of the season against the Chiefs over a week ago after three consecutive losses. — Sapa-AAP